


Ties That Bind

by Daxmvarg



Series: Fire Emblem Fates: A Tale of Two Royals [1]
Category: Fire Emblem: If | Fire Emblem: Fates
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-18
Updated: 2019-04-18
Packaged: 2020-01-15 17:41:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 43,790
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18503875
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Daxmvarg/pseuds/Daxmvarg





	1. Chapter 1

Azura was never one to fall asleep easily, what with the knowledge of the fact that she was the last of her bloodline and people, the fact that they were in the middle of a war, and how both she and Corrin were basically nothing more than hostages in the world's largest chess game. Those problems, plus a healthy dollop of flashbacks, nightmares, social anxiety, and low-esteem meant that  whenever she  _did_  manage to fall asleep for more than a few hours at a time meant that she often spent the entire night tossing and turning, often ending up at the floor of her quarters to twisted in ways human bodies were never meant to be twisted.

Most people in these situations would've spent the entire day lying in their beds then, wondering whether or not they should follow their friend's—if they had any friends—advice on seeking help.

Not Azura, though.

Though she would never admit it if Elise or the rest of her many siblings asked on it, there was  _one_  person that always managed to bring a smile to her face, that always managed to make her feel safe and relaxed. What with his charming smile and his laid-back and easygoing nature, Corrin always managed to bring out this happy little dollop of sunlight in the eternal night that she often referred to as her life.

Azura huffed and groaned in pain as she fell out of her bed and onto the floor for the third time that time. As she huffed and climbed back into her bed, she knew that tonight would be just like every other night.

* * *

" _MOTHER!"_

_Corrin's anguished sobs echoed throughout the ruined market as he held Mikoto in his arms. Azura watched with horror and shock, tears streaming down her face._

_She had been walking behind Mikoto and Corrin as they chatted about their day. Azura had followed them along silently, simply nodding and smiling whenever they brought her into the conversation._

_While Mikoto was explaining to Corrin what presenting him to the general public would do for them, Azura noticed a hooded man slinking into a shaded alleyway. While watching a man wearing a hood on a sunny day was suspicion enough, the mere fact that the man was making a conscious effort to hide any and all parts of his body set Azura on edge, though she wasn't sure why_

_Later, that same man pushed his way to the front of the crowd, so that he was in the empty space separating the rabble from the royals. Shocked whispers spread out among the crowd at the man's blatant disrespect, but Mikoto and Corrin simply raised an eyebrow._

_The man reached out with his hand—a hand that was covered with purple flames—towards Corrin and Mikoto. Mikoto frowned and opened her mouth undoubtedly call her guards, when Corrin's sword suddenly flew off his hips and into the man's outstretched hand._

_The man thrust Ganglari into the ground, whereupon it started to pulse violently. A massive orb of fell energy burst free of the blade, shattering it and instantly killing and shredding apart any innocents standing too close to it. Mikoto's and Corrin's widened in shock as the shards of the weapon streaked through the air towards them._

_The two guards in front of Mikoto reacted instantly, putting their bodies and lives between the shards and their liege, to no avail. The shards pierced through their body as easily as a sword would tear through paper, and still carried enough momentum behind them to easily kill anyone._

_Azura's hands flew to her mouth, her eyes widening as Mikoto threw herself in front of Corrin, further shielding him. She screamed, a terrible, keening sound that Azura didn't even know humans could make, as she collapsed into Corrin's arms._

_Corrin fell to his knees in shock as she whispered a few words to him. What, the words were, Azura did not know. They were meant for Corrin, and Corrin alone._

_Whatever the case, Mikoto's body grew still within his arms as Corrin screamed in raw agony and rage. Takumi and Sakura were likewise stunned into silence. Save for the royals, a few guards staggering to their feet, and the cries of the wounded buried in the rubble, everyone was dead._

_The once-beautiful town square looked nothing more than Valla's empty ruins just then. Clouds of dust billowed upwards in massive heaves as pieces of rubble continued raining from the sky._

_To her, the world had gone mute. She flatly watched as Ryoma pulled himself to his feet with Raijinto and pointed the legendary weapon towards the man, who—despite being at the center of the fell explosion—stood silently, gently swaying side to side as if a small breeze was blowing against him._

_Ryoma dashed forward and slashed the man shoulder to hip, revealing nothing but tatters of the cloak he had just worn._

_Azura stared at the image of her adoptive brother shouting his fury and challenges to the world before another, more terrible sight drew her attention away from him. Gouts of fire and purple energy were spurting from between the folds of Corrin's armor as his arms snapped out to either side of him as he roared, quite literally roared, his anger to the gods._

_Red and purple fire shot out from beneath his feet as a thick smoke covered the rest of the body. Despite the smoke, Azura could barely make out the sight of wings sprouting from his back, his hands and feet changing—twisting—themselves into talons._

_In Corrin's place stood a dragon, its platinum white scales stark against the clouds of dust billowing everywhere. It reared back and roared, grief and rage apparent, even in its mindless savagery._

_It turned and mauled an unfortunate soldier that was struggling to climb to his feet nearby. Takumi snapped out of his shock and hurriedly pulled Sakura away from the dragon as what remained of the contingent of guards that had escorted Corrin and Mikoto charged towards the dragon._

_"What is that?" Takumi asked, once he and Sakura were safely out of the dragon's reach._

_"It's…it's a dragon," Ryoma blurted. "I thought…I never thought I'd ever see the day…"_

_If anything, it was the presence of fear in Hoshido's crown prince that drew her out of her shock. She ducked out from behind the pillar that she had been hiding behind and raced towards the dragon, pulling her pendant from the confines of her dress and hair as she did so._

_The dragon reared back its head and roared again in triumph at the dozen or so mangled bodies surrounding it. Its massive head snapped towards Azura as it saw her coming._

_Azura mentally leafed through her options as she slowed to a walk. Azura knew little of dragons, save that one of them was responsible for the destruction of Valla, and that they, like any elder race, were prone to fits of madness, and should their madness consume them, nothing would be left the same._

_There was only one option, and it was a risky one at that if it failed, but without hesitation, Azura took it. She opened her lips to sing the song that had proven to be both her birthright and burden._

_"_ You are the ocean's gray waves…"

" _Azura! Stop!"_

_Ryoma broke free of his trance-like state and was even fast enough to grab Azura's arm before a blast of water erupted out from under his feet, pushing him back towards Sakura and Takumi._

_Azura spared a second to glance over her shoulder at them before closing her eyes and taking a deep breath to fortify her resolve._

"You are the ocean's wave waves, destined to seek…

Life beyond the shore, just out of reach…"

_The dragon roared at her again, spread its wings out to appear larger. Despite this, there was something about the dragon's cry this time. It was meeker and more desperate this time, rather than full of fury the first time it had roared._

_For a split second, Azura allowed her heart to soar. She was succeeding! She took another step towards the dragon as she burst into the next stanza._

_The dragon's tail twitched, ever so slightly._

_Azura's eyes widened and she tried to raise her hands to protect herself as the dragon reared and slashed her, shoulder to hip, with its claws. Azura screamed in pain as she fell onto her back, her vision flashing black and red as the back of her head slammed into the ground._

_Through the pain and blurry vision, she tried to gasp out the last line of her song. Before she could even open her mouth, however, the dragon's claws slammed into her throat, causing her to cry out in pain as Sakura screamed her name._

_Azura weakly grasped what would've been the wrist of the dragon's claw as tears streamed down her face._

_"_ Flowing…like time…the path is yours…to climb…"

_The dragon tiled its head in amusement as it looked down at the slender human hand touching its scale. Azura did the same, and to her horror, saw that' there were splotches of purple energy spreading out throughout her body and arm._

_"No…" she whimpered as the familiar numbness spread throughout her body. "N-not yet…"_

_The dragon curiously jabbed at where Azura's face would've been with a single talon, only to be met with a splash of water. The dragon shook its head and rolled its shoulder back, almost as if it was shrugging, before it turned on Takumi, Ryoma, and Sakura._

_Takumi screamed in pain as the dragon tore him limb from limb while Ryoma staggered away, trying to hold in his intestines with a single arm. The single paw slammed onto Azura's pendant, shattering it. Sakura screamed once, as the dragon turned its full attention on her, and was silenced._

_All this and more, Azura watched as she felt herself slowly drifting upward to join her mother and father. The last image she saw before she left was the silhouette of Corrin's curled-up body in the dragon's chest as it stamped and tore on Sakura's, Takumi's, and Ryoma's carcasses._

* * *

 

Azura bolted upright. Surely, it was dawn, right? The nightmares always felt like they lasted an eternity, but a quick query to a passing sentry confirmed her suspicions.

She sat down at the edge of her bed, holding her head in her hands and tears fell freely onto the floor between her feet. After a while, the tears slowly stopped coming, and Azura lifted her head to stare out the window at the woods surrounding the castle.

The castle had no name, and throughout the war, both Corrin and Azura had referred to it as "MyCastle," though Azura wasn't sure that would be the case once the war was over. If it was ever over.

According to Lilith, the castle had been built some forty-odd centuries ago, during the First War, the war that also formed the three nations of Nohr, Valla, and Hoshido. Which nation built it, nobody knew, since the castle shared similarities to both Nohrian and Hoshidan architect and was supposedly a vital checkpoint and defensive location on what was now The Bottomless Canyon.

None had been able to breach it, since every time a foreign army attempt to take it, they were repelled every time. Eventually, one of the sides called upon the Astral Dragon Moro to seal the castle, along with all of its defendants away inside an alternate dimension. Said dimension was the Astral Plane. The trapped defenders slowly wasted away due to infighting and starvation, and history slowly lost track of it.

Lilith had said that the castle existed in real life, and was still "present," so to speak, but according to the former stable-girl, no one could enter, and no one could leave. Walking towards the edge of the border would result in the would-be trespasser ending up several dozen feet away, dazed and confused, with no idea how they got there. Similarly, it's impossible to leave the castle, since walking towards the distant ocean and mountains would cause one to be dumped back in the center in an undignified heap. Not that one was forbidden from leaving the castle ground; Moro had been generous enough to gift the original inhabitants with nearly 40 kilometers of land around the castle. Not that it did much to help, since the original defenders had nothing save for their horses, boots, and a few barrels of mead for food.

The only way to travel back and forth to the real world, as well as to grow food, is with the help of an Astral Dragon.

Thankfully, Corrin's stable girl, Lilith, turned out to be one of these Astral Dragons, and was more than willing to warp and change the land in the astral plane to what Corrin saw fit. That was how he was able to fund this entire war against Valla, though to the handful of soldiers and mercenaries that had willingly joined them, it was to unite Hoshido and Nohr once again.

When Corrin discovered that he could ask Lilith to change the land as he saw fit, in any way he wanted—so long as it was physically possible—he had immediately requested that she create a lake in the woods surrounding the castle, so that it "looked like the lake where I met Azura at, in Hoshido."

At first, Azura had been against the idea of Corrin taking away valuable land just so that she could have a place to sing in private, but once the nightmares and flashbacks started to show up, she found herself more often than not spending her nights strolling around the perimeter of the lake, waiting for her pulse to settle down.

Azura stood up and quickly dressed herself, pulling a cloak around herself for both modesty and warmth. She needed to tell Corrin the truth, the truth about the bags under her eyes and the sadness in her life. It was about time that she visited the lake again.


	2. Chapter 2

_Corrin stared down at the girl in passionate disinterest as she struggled to pry her hands off the claw around her throat._

_"P-please, Corrin," she gasped. "D-don't do this…"_

_Where Corrin's eyes would've been on the metallic-blue faceplate that was his face, they would've gleamed as Corrin pressed even harder. A snap echoed around the ruined courtyard. This time, the girl fell silent, and remained silent._

_Just as Corrin reared his head back to roar his triumph, a sense of panic and dread overcame him as he saw thick black smoke crawling over his vision, blotting out all the color in the world as an excruciating, ming-bumbing pain spread throughout his entire body. In a flash, he was back in his human forms, and the first thing that hit him was the smell of death and blood pervading through the air._

_The second thing to hit him was the wet feeling in his legs and knees. He looked down to see, to his horror, the crushed and mangled body of Azura, the only person he had met so far in Hoshido who he could trust._

_And now she was dead._

_"No!" he shouted, reeling backwards. He clutched his head in his hands as tears flowed freely, unchecked._

_He gently held Azura's crumpled body in his arms as his eyes wandered blindly over the destruction he had wrought as a dragon. In the smoke, he could faintly see the ruined bodies of Sakura, Takumi, Ryoma, and all those who had been caught in his rampage._

_Even more tears fell freely from his cheeks as he stroked Azura's blood-stained hair out of her face and pulled her close to his chest. The once white dress was now stained with her blood, and her beautiful, once-long hair, was shredded and torn out of her scalp by the clumps. As he grieved her death, he was dimly aware of wings sprouting forth from his back and claws shooting out from his arms again, only this time, it wasn't him who was in control of his body, but the dragon._

_The dragon rose from the ground and stared down at the broken body again before he turned and spread his wings. After a few flaps, he rose grandly into the air. The dragon turned towards the mountains, where he knew there would be more humans. Even as he pumped his wings, Corrin could smell the blood already sitting on his tongue._

_A series of visions flashed through him then. _A lake glistening underneath the moonlight. A castle, a thick black smoke billowing hundreds of feet into the air. A flash of light as a golden sword—Yato— burst into flames, its edges surrounded with its divine fire. A crowd cheering, their voices tainted with outrage as they threw whatever they could get their hands on at a single man shuffling towards a set of gallows. A baby's cry echoed throughout a nursery as its mother gently coddled it. A hooded man standing between two doors, a congenial smile on his face. The hooded man opened his eyes to reveal red eyes, similar to Corrin's. A man knelt before a woman, a ring made of onyx and diamonds, a sapphire beset within its head glistening in the sunset.__

* * *

With a gasp, Corrin's eyes snapped open, and he bolted upright. He groaned and shook his head.

"What was that?" he murmured to himself. "What were those visions?"

Corrin raised his head off the desk and blindly wandered over to the window-door leading to the balcony. As he pushed the doors open, he cast a rueful glance at the tiny cot pushed away in the corner.

If he had thought bring Nohr and Hoshido together to unite against Anankos was stressful, trying to prevent the two from killing each other while they waited for the rest of their forces to arrive in the astral plane and The Bottomless Canyon was outright nerve-wracking. He often spent his nights perusing over reports of Nohrian soldiers blaming Hoshidans for a broken polearm, and Hoshidans blaming Nohrians for "accidentally" tripping them on their way to the privy and so on.

With a sigh, he rested his hands on the balcony handrail and allowed the moonlight to bathe him in its gaze. Despite Lilith saying that the castle was sealed away in an astral plane, the land was still subject to the laws of time, and as such, the passage of day and night. At first, Corrin had been glad: without anything to keep track of the numbers of days he spent in the astral plane, he very well could've gone a week, a month, possibly a full year without ever noticing the passage of time. Now, every time the sun kissed the surface of the world, Corrin felt a growing irritation within himself whenever he glared at the pile of paperwork still on his desk.

Between being half-dragon, burdened with the knowledge of a dragon in a hidden kingdom intent on destroying the world, and trying to prevent one side of his family from the killing the other, he usually spent more nights awake than not.

He yawned and stretched his arms behind his head. As he turned to head back into his study, he noticed a shadow detach itself from the rest of the castle's and head off into the woods, towards the lake.

Corrin smiled. Who else could it be but Azura?

Corrin has had a rough life. He knew it. His siblings knew it. Everyone knew it. But Azura? Azura was… _different_.

The day he had met her singing her song by the lakeside, he had been entranced by her in a way he'd never been entranced before. Sure, there was that  _one_  instance where he "accidentally" walked in on Flora and Felicia still in their smallclothes as child to see whether or not maids slept at all, but that didn't count in Corrin's books.

Azura struck him out as…different. The fact that she was absolutely  _beautiful_ , plus the melancholy way she sang, surprised him almost as much as the fact that she was a hostage, same as him. Even as he was kidnapped from Hoshido as a child, Azura was kidnapped from Nohr. She looked so scared, yet so resigned to her fate, that Corrin wouldn't help but feel the urge to roll and wrap her up in a blanket to feed her every ounce of his positivity until the tears stopped flowing.

That, and the aforementioned reasons, caused something to  _click_  within Corrin. He had never felt both so drawn and protective towards someone before, least of all someone he had barely met more than a couple of months ago.

Corrin glanced again at the tiny cot in the corner of his study before heading inside to grab a cloak.

"It's not like I'm going to get anything else done tonight, right?" he said to himself. He grasped his dragonstone in his hand, the surface smooth and warm behind his palm, and concentrated on a partial transformation without making any noise. A flash of light shone through the night as his head was replaced by his draconic counterpart, and silver wings spread and unfurled themselves from his back. Despite the only light coming from the moonlight and the lanterns of the sentries patrolling the castle battlements, his wings shimmered in the dark.

With only a moment's pause, Corrin tensed his legs and jumped off the balcony, entering a shallow glide. Using the light breeze that had sprung up to carry him, Corrin made his way over the castle battlements, swerving only to avoid the wandering eyes of a watchmen looking upward towards the sky.

He didn't need to wonder where Azura was heading. He was heading towards the same place as well.


	3. Chapter 3

Azura hummed a little Hoshidan ditty to herself as she paced around the edge of the lake. The lake, for a reason she had not revealed to anyone other than Corrin, calmed her like nothing else could. Sure, the feeling of holding or petting something cute and fluffy made her want to cuddle up to it as much as she could, but here, at the lake, this was the one place where she could truly feel relaxed.

"I thought I'd find you here," a voice sounded from somewhere above her, it's owner's tone distorted by a warbling metallic sheen. "It's not like I specifically asked Lilith to create this lake for you."

Azura smiled and turned to see Corrin gliding towards her. "Hello Corrin," she greeted. "What brings you out here tonight?"

Corrin landed on his feet, catlike. His wings folded themselves into his back as his red eyes gleamed at her in the darkness. "Why, nothing, Azura," he replied playfully. "I was 'doing my work,' and all of a sudden, I saw you walking into the forest. Is there another reason why I would like to talk to you?"

Azura smiled, that familiar dollop of sunlight relighting itself in her chest. "Well, truth be told, I wanted to talk to you tonight."

That got Corrin's attention. Though she could be blunt, Azura was not one to outright tell others what she wanted.

He raised his eyebrows. "What did you need?" he asked.

Azura looked away and rubbed her arm. "Well, it's sort of a long story," she said hesitatingly.

Corrin walked up to her and wrapped his arm around her shoulder. "Well, I've had a long night. Surprise me."

At first, Corrin had thought his gesture and words might've pushed Azura away. She was  _definitely_  not one to appreciate such advances, but to his relief, she did not. Instead, she leaned into him, though neither noticed.

"…"

"…"

"…"

"Are…are you going to say anything?"

Azura jumped. She had been getting used to the weight around her shoulders, that she forgot what she was going to say. "Oh, right! Like I was saying, I've wanted to tell you something. The truth."

Corrin raised his eyebrows. "The truth? Is it something like 'Anankos is secretly driving the war between Hoshido and Nohr, and he lives in a kingdom where if you say its name, you disappear,' or is it something else?"

Azura giggled before she could stop herself, but immediately sobered up. "No. I'm afraid the truth is something much smaller this time, but no less important. The truth is…I've been having these nightmares recently."

That  _definitely_  rose Corrin's eyebrows. He raised his hand off Azura's shoulder, much to her displeasure, though she made no mention of it.

"What…kind of nightmares?" he asked cautiously. Nobody knew better than him about Azura's…convoluted past, and  _nobody_  knew better than him to not bring up such memories.  _Especially_  whenever they were alone.

Azura sighed. "I've been having nightmares. About that day…"

"Oh…"

Corrin sighed and rubbed his head. "Again, Azura, you have to listen to me! "I'm sorry! I didn't mean to attack you like—"

"Oh gods, it's not you at all!" Azura said hurriedly. "It's not you! It's me..."

"You?"

Azura turned to face Corrin squarely and looked up to meet his gaze, his red eyes full of worry and concern. "Corrin," she started gently, though her voice was shaking. "I had a nightmare about you. But this time, it was different.  _Everything_  was different."

"Different how?" he breathed.

"You killed Ryoma, you killed Sakura, you killed Takumi…" Corrin appeared sickened at her words. "But the worst part was, when I tried to sing to you, when I tried to calm you down, I…I  _died_ ," Azura continued. "I  _died_. Takumi, Ryoma, and Sakura  _died_  because  _I_  died."

"Oh gods," Corrin murmured. "I'm so—"

"I didn't die because of you, I died  _because_  of my song."

"Your song? I thought you said your song—"

"—could only hurt me and not kill me," Azura finished hastily, though she felt no small amount of guilt at having to keep the secret from him. "Yes, I know, but don't you ever have a fear that you might die doing something you know shouldn't kill you normally?"

Corrin nodded silently.

"That's what happened in my dream," Azura continued. "I tried to stop you, and I failed. Takumi, Sakura, Ryoma…all of them died in my dream, all because I couldn't stop you." Here, Azura's voice began to thicken. "B-but the worst part is, when I was floating away, where I don't know, I saw  _you_."

"M-me?"

Azura nodded and wiped her eyes on the back of her hand. "You," she agreed. "I saw the dragon rampage on, but this time, it wasn't you. You had already died, or become something very close to that, and as I watched, you...you..."

Azura shook her head, unable to continue any further. Corrin automatically rest an arm around her shoulders again. To his surprise, Azura suddenly wrapped the entirety of her body around Corrin's chest, her hair tickling his chin as she buried her face in his chest. After a moment's hesitation, he gently wrapped his other arm around her, pulling her closer to him.

"I'm sorry," he whispered. "I never knew I could be so terrible of—"

"It wasn't you though!" she cried. "That was the problem! You  _weren't there!_  You ceased to exist! You died! You never came back! That's the worst part!"

Azura buried her face again in Corrin's chest. "I-it's just…it's just that when I saw you being overwhelmed and losing your humanity, I…I realized something terrible."

"What is it?" Corrin whispered.

Azura leaned back and gazed up at Corrin. "I couldn't bear to lose you like that again," she whispered. "I already lost my mother, and my father. I couldn't stand it if I was to lose you too…"

Corrin immediately understood when she meant by that then. How could he not? Only a fool could've taken that out of context, especially coming from a woman.

"I…I know," he said. "I feel the same way."

Azura's breath hitched in her throat as she looked up at Corrin. Corrin looked away, his long white hair obscuring his eyes, though she could've sworn his ears were blushing pale red in the moonlight. She tried to let that sight please her, but the anguish of the situation demanded otherwise.

"I also had a nightmare tonight," Corrin admitted. "And…and it was also about that day. It was just like you described it. Ryoma was dead. Takumi was dead. Sakura too. But you…you were still alive."

Corrin finally looked at her, and Azura was heartbroken to see the amount of anguish within those red orbs glowing in the night. "You were still alive, except  _I_  was holding you there, to the ground."

"Cor—"

"You were  _begging_  me to let you live, but I killed you," Corrin finished. " _I_ killed you. I-I—"

Corrin stopped himself before he could go any further. He took a deep breath and sighed.

"Azura," he began. "Are…were you ever afraid of me? Whenever I transform? Did you ever hate me for being part dragon?"

Azura hesitated before answering. This was a particularly sensitive topic between them. After the battle, once they finally managed to settle down in the astral plane, Corrin had ran up to her and begged,  _begged_  for her forgiveness.

Despite her never hating or thinking negatively of Corrin because of his actions that day, the bruises that Corrin had inflicted on her neck and throat never truly faded, despite Sakura's healing magic. She had immediately accepted his apologies, despite her telling him that there was no need for him to apologize. Obviously, he hadn't taken this to heart yet.

"N-no," she answered truthfully. "I never hated you for anything. Not when you accidentally called me your 'girlfriend' at that one vendor stall, nor when you snuck up on me when I was bathing, but especially not when you transformed that day."

Of course, she didn't hate Corrin, but that wasn't to say that she wasn't  _afraid_  of such a thing happening again. That was part of the reason why she had given Corrin his dragonstone on the spot after his recovery. Partially so that he could control his draconic rampages should it ever happen again, but also partially out of fear. There was no greater terror than being pinned to the ground by a dragon that was once your closest friend and ally.

Azura was no stranger to being backstabbed and betrayed, thanks to spending her childhood in Garon's court, but even the thought of Corrin willingly betraying her shook her to the very core. Corrin was far too caring and gentle for him to kill her. But when he was a dragon…and without a dragonstone…

"Corrin, I won't lie to you, but I admit it. I was scared when you attacked—" Corrin grimaced and turned away, "—but that wasn't  _you_ , Corrin. That wasn't the Corrin I know. That was the Corrin that would lash out at anyone who tried to hurt his friends. That was the Corrin that refused to choose either Hoshido or Nohr over the other because the thought of willingly hurt those who were close to him hurts him more than anything else in the world. That's nothing to be ashamed of! It just shows how much you care for other people."

"Still doesn't excuse the fact I attacked and almost killed you," Corrin muttered.

Azura cupped Corrin's cheek in her hand and turned his face towards her. "Maybe, maybe not, but that's not the important par," she said. "The important part was that you managed to calm yourself down afterwards. The mere fact that you were able to break through your rage to listen to my song enough to calm you down says more about you than anything else. You don't have to hate your other form—because gods know I never will. Your human side? That's just who you truly are. Caring, willing to help others, even if you din't know them very well. Your dragon side? That's the part where those feelings of passion and loyalty are strongest. Trust me, it's nothing to be ashamed of."

Corrin still refused to meet her eyes. "You still didn't tell me if you were afraid of me or not."

Azura sighed. "You can be really hopeless sometimes, Corrin." She stood on her tip-toes and leaned in close to his ear and whispered, "I could never be afraid of you," before falling back on the flats of her feet.

"Say it with me," she said. "Being part dragon does not make me a bad person. It just makes me more human."

"…"

"I don't hear you saying it."

"Hmph. Fine. Being part dragon does not make me a bad person. It just makes me more human," Corrin repeated dully.

"Again."

"Being part dragon does not mean I'm a bad guy, it just means I'm more human."

"Again."

"Being part dragon does not make me a bad person. It just makes me more human." This time, the words were much easier to get through, and Corrin could feel a calming sensation spreading throughout his body as Azura's amber eyes gazed at him in the dark. He felt his skin starting to burn as he realized the coolness of Azura's hand against his cheek.

"Thank you, Azura. For…for everything," he said. "I'm sorry you had to see me like this. I know you have enough on your plate to deal with without having to offer me therapy sessions every night."

Azura could only smile at his words. "Don't be. Trust me, talking with you helps me just as much as it helps you. Our fates are intertwined, and without each other, we'll never be able to make it through alive."

Corrin chuckled. "I think you're being just a tad over-dramatic."

Azura laughed as well. "Well, maybe. Maybe I am, maybe I'm not, but trust me when I say that you're one of the most important people in my life right now."

Corrin raised an eyebrow and opened his mouth to reply when a guard's rough voice broke through the night.

"Hey! You two! What are you doing?" the guard shouted. "How did you two—" The guard's voice faltered as he realized who he was shouting at.

"Oh! Lord Corrin! Lady Azura! I'm sorry, I didn't know it was—"

"It's fine, Garvin," Corrin sighed, waving a hand dismissively. "We're almost done here. Don't worry, we'll head back inside in a couple of minutes."

"Ah—I see," the guard said awkwardly. "Well, um, you best wrap it up, milord. The night brings with it a chill. How weather works in this gods-forsaken land is beyond me…" Any other words the guards might've muttered into his beard was lost to the night as he walked away.

Corrin turned back to Azura with a mildly exasperated look. "Well, I think this wraps up our therapy session for tonight," he quipped. "We really should head back. Garvin's not the type of man to start gossip, but other sentries might be."

"I suppose," Azura agreed.

Corrin nodded and turned away to trudge back towards the castle when he realized he was still alone. He turned back to see Azura staring back out onto the surface of the lake.

"Um, Azura?"

"I'm fine, Corrin," she replied. "I'm just going to stay out here a couple moments longer. Take a moment to think, you know?"

Corrin nodded. "Well, make sure you don't stay out here too long. It's cold tonight, and we have to organize the army and supplies again tomorrow. We're still in the middle of a war, after all."

Azura smiled and nodded. "Of course,  _Lord Corrin_."

Corrin shuddered. "Please, don't ever call me that. We're equals, aren't we? We don't need to be addressing each other by our respective titles, right  _Lady Azura_?"

Azura laughed and shooed him away. "Alright, alright. I promise I won't call you by your title again."

Corrin smiled and turned away again, but before he left, he looked over his shoulder at Azura. "Uh, one last thing, Azura."

"Hm?"

"Thank…thanks for the help, Azura. You have no idea how much your words mean to me."

Azura smiled. "Anytime."

Corrin smiled back and walked away, throwing out a farewell wave with his hand as he disappeared into the trees. Azura watched his silvery-white hair fade into the darkness before sighing and turning back to the surface of the lake.

That small dollop of sunlight was still there in her chest, and no matter what she did, she couldn't find the words to name it. It made her happy, but it also made her long for something more, something different. The last time she felt such a way was all the way back in Nohr, when her mother spent their mornings and nights together brushing her long hair.

Azura smiled and shook her head as she headed back to the castle. That feeling will surely name itself in due time, but for now, she had a war to focus on, and a bed to sleep in.

As she fell back onto her cot and drifted off to sleep, she realized in the back of her head that tonight would be the first night where she would be able to sleep peacefully without being plagued with nightmares.

That still didn't mean her hair wouldn't be atrocious in the morning.

* * *

 

Corrin groaned and pushed open the doorway leading into his treehouse. The treehouse, he remembered, was supposedly to be a unique version of the private quarters built throughout the castle, but Corrin found himself spending more and more nights in his study than in his actual room. That was why he had commissioned Lilith to push a cot into the already cramped and overflowing room.

With a  _huff_ , Corrin fell back onto his bed and stared up at the ceiling, his feelings in turmoil. Despite Azura's words, he still felt some level of guilt for attacking her. It always surprised him, albeit in a pleasing way, that despite meeting Azura scarcely less than a couple month's ago, he already trusted her with his deepest secrets, and more importantly, his life.

Part of him wanted to put his arms around her and comfort her, to tell her that everything will be alright, but the other half reminded him of the trauma that she's been through. She wouldn't appreciate the gesture, but despite this, Corrin found himself flipping through the calendar on the wall, before finally resting his finger on the third day of the third month.

Corrin smiled at the tiny scribbles surrounding the number, no doubt Elise's work. That girl could remember everything about someone's birthday. The runes spelling out " _Azura's b-day._ "

_One day,_  he thought to himself.  _One day._


	4. Chapter 4

Azura definitely had a strong love-hate relationship with her hair. On one hand, it was fun (and secretly satisfying) to watch the wavy blue mane reach to her ankles, and secretly, she enjoyed the envious looks the other women in the army threw towards her, though said looks were also tempered by pity.

Having hair reaching down to her ankles was no vacation. It was heavy. It took the strength of a dragon to brush it without wincing every few seconds. It took her nearly an hour longer to wash her hair compared to other women's. Sometimes, if she wasn't paying attention, she would trip over her hair while walking up stairs, which required her to bundle up her hair in her arms and carry it down. Thankfully, Corrin, Subaki, and Xander were well aware of her plight, and after having a heated debate over Azura's refusal to cut her hair, arranged her schedule so that she would rarely be forced to climb any long length of stairs, but still left out all the times where Azura would accidentally close the door on her own hair, trapping herself.

The worst part, however, would undoubtedly be its behavior in the mornings. Azura was known for being "neat," but she was also known for heaving the worst cases of bedhead in the mornings. Every morning, without fail, she would wake up with her hair resembling nothing more like a house blown apart by a dragon that didn't like houses. It was infuriating, and exhausting too, since she was forced to get nearly an hour earlier than everyone else to smoothen out her hair.

Today, however, was different. Azura woke in a surprisingly good mood, good enough that even the sight of her hair (which decided to take the appearance of an overly-obese azure hedgehog today) wasn't enough to discourage her. As Azura dressed herself and looked at her form in the mirror, she couldn't help but marvel at the length of her hair, and the toned shape of her legs.

Azura was not one to be vain about her appearance, but the sight of her legs, long, slender, toned, and still as smooth as a baby's face, caused her no small amount of satisfaction. Forgetting where she was, she rolled her shoulders and let out a small purr, before immediately clamping a hand over her mouth as she glanced nervously at the door. Surely, no one had heard her, right?

Once she was done dressing herself, Azura's hand scrabbled over the surface of her night drawer for her brush. As she began the arduous process of yanking out knots, she allowed her mind to wander freely, a rare occurrence, considering their circumstance.

After what felt like an eternity, Azura finally set her brush down back on the night drawer and ritually fastened her trademark habit over her head. Satisfied with her appearance, she gently pushed the door to her room open, fervently hoping that no one would notice, to no avail.

"Good morning, Azura," Ryoma greeted as he stepped outside of his quarters. "Sleep well?"

Azura nodded. "Do…do you know what we're supposed to be doing today?" she asked.

Ryoma adjusted the headgear on his head as he thought for a moment. "Admittedly, no. I haven't had the opportunity to check the roster for today yet, but I overheard Xander say that he supposedly to have a meeting with you, me, and Corrin later today."

"Today?" Azura asked. "What's the meeting for?"

"I don't know," Ryoma replied. "All I know is that we have a meeting later today. Where are you heading off to?"

Azura rubbed her stomach. "Well, I wasn't really hungry this morning, so I thought I would just take a look at the roster for today and get started with whatever's first." The moment she finished, her stomach let out an enormous growl.

Azura and Ryoma both looked down at her stomach in surprise. "Not hungry, huh?" Ryoma teased.

Azura shook her head. "I'm sure it's—"

"You're coming with me, Azura," Ryoma said as he turned and trudged down the hallway towards the mess hall. "You can always deal with your social anxiety later."

"B-but that's…not how it works…" she muttered before she begrudgingly followed the red figure down the hallway.

Azura had been hoping to sneak past the gargantuan line of waiting soldiers to peek at today's schedule, but unfortunately, she felt a pair of hands wrapping themselves around her waist.

"Hi big sis!" Elise chirped, her voice muffled by Azura's hair and back. "Where've you been hiding? Me and Sakura've been looking for you  _forever!_ "

Azura looked behind her to see Elise burying her face in Azura's back while Sakura smiled back at her, her face red with embarrassment.

"Elise! You're embarrassing us!" Sakura whispered. "C-can't we do this somewhere else?"

"Hello Elise. Hello Sakura," Azura greeted. "What can I do for you?"

Elise giggled. "Well, I was sort of hoping you could sit with us today for breakfast."

Azura frowned. "…Me? With… _you_?" she said slowly.

Elise nodded. "Of course, you big dummy! I want to learn more about you! Xander, Leo, and Camilla always say that you're really nice and awesome and you seem really nice and awesome, so I wanted to just we can get to know each other better!"

"T-that's very nice, Elise, but I have to—"

"Plus, Corrin also says that sometimes, even though you're really cute and pretty and beautiful, you look so sad all the time, and so I wanted to cheer you up instead of him this time!"

Azura's brain fizzled out at what Elise just said. "He…he really said that about me?"

"Yeah! And he's right!" Elise replied excitedly. "You really are pretty and beautiful and sad sometimes! I mean, like, look at your hair!" She gently held up a few strands of Azura's hair and began to absentmindedly braid it. "Like, you would look so pretty in a braid and…and—"

"That's all very nice, Elise," Azura said, "But unfortunately, I'm very busy today. I…have a lot of things to do today!" she lied. "Like…er, um, cleaning the polearms! And…and working in the accessory shop."

Elise pouted. "You're lying!" she said, jabbing a finger in Azura's side, causing her to yelp and flex away. "I just checked your schedule for you, and all it says you have to do today is attend a meeting with Ryoma, my brother, and Corrin later! Plus, you don't even like the accessory shop! The only way you could ever work in the accessory shop was if you signed up for it, but since you hate it, why would you ever work there?"

Azura sighed in defeat. "Alright, you caught me. I'll…sit with you for today."

"Yay!" Elise jumped up in down in excitement, causing Azura to yelp again as she tried to keep her balance. "I'll grab us a seat! Just get your food!"

And with that, she bounded away towards a, thankfully, relatively empty table. Azura sighs as someone forces a tray into her hand. She wanders over to the self-serve section of the mess hall and dejectedly plops a bowl of porridge onto her tray, grabs a small bag of strawberries, grabs a spoon, and makes her way over to where Elise and Sakura were already sitting and talking animatedly.

"S-so?" Sakura sputters, nearly choking on a few specks of rice. "J-just because I say h-hi to him doesn't mean I l-like him in that way!"

Elise rolls her eyes. "Oh please, we both know you  _totally_  have a thing for Leo!"

"W-well, what about Azura? You always m-make fun of me for 'liking L-leo,' so how come you don't m-make fun of A-Azura?"

Azura froze, her spoon halfway to her mouth. "What?"

Elise bounces in her seat excitedly. "Oh yeah! So basically, Sakura and I were talking about who we like, and apparently, Sakura says she doesn't like Leo  _that_  way, but I disagree. I mean, wouldn't  _you_  like Leo if you weren't always so sad?"

"I am not sad," Azura said flatly. "I simply have a lot of—"

"Plus," Elise continued, ignoring Azura's statement. "I think Leo and Sakura would be a  _perfect_  fit together! I mean, didn't Leo  _ask_  you to go with him to a war council meeting a couple days ago? I mean…"

All this and more was lost to Azura as she allowed her mind to wander, bored and mildly exasperated at Elise's barrage of words. It wasn't she hated her, she loved her very much indeed, but it was simply that Elise…well, has no real understanding of introverted natures.

"W-what about you, A-Azura?"

Azura snaps back to attention. "What's going on? What'd you need?"

Elise rolled her eyes. "Weren't you paying attention? We were talking about what we see in our future husbands! Like, Sakura said—"

"—no! Please don't tell her!" Sakura squealed.

"—that she really enjoyed how Leo leaves ink marks on her skin whenever he shakes her hand, and how she loves the way how Leo's eyes light up whenever he sees a tomato, but that's not important. What do you see in your future husband? Hmmm?"

Azura doesn't like such invasions of privacy, but all the same, she shrugs. "I-I don't know. I'm not really interested in anyone right now, especially because of the war."

Sakura blushes. "T-that's not true," she murmurs. "You a-always spend a lot of time with b-big brother a-and—"

"—I don't see how that's relevant!" she snaps back, her composure snapping for once. Sakura blinks and cowers backward. Azura grimaced and placatingly rests her hand over Sakura's.

"Please, forgive me, Sakura. I didn't mean to snap at you like that."

"I-it's fine," she replies. "I-I'm sorry if I made you uncomfortable…"

"Well, that's no fun!" Elise exclaims, oblivious to the lapse in tone between the two. "You really don't like anyone?

"No."

"Are you lying to us right now?"

"…No."

"But are you sure you don't like anyone?"

"Very sure."

"Does big brother know that you like someone?"

"No—" Azura caught herself just in time. "I  _do not_ like anyone right now!" she said.

"Fine then!" Elise insisted. "Well, if you  _had_  to marry anyone in the army, who would it be?"

"I don't—"

It was at the exact moment when the doors to the mess hall bursts open, and Corrin comes inside, followed by Silas and Camilla. Corrin and Silas both looked sweaty, panting slightly as Camilla tried to wrap a towel around the two of them, much to Silas' embarrassment and Corrin's displeasure. Azura's eyes instantly snapped up to the trio, more specifically Corrin, and felt her heart skip a beat as that dollop of sunlight bloomed inside her again.

"Can you…can you just get off me for a second, Camilla?" Azura hears him say. "I'm fine! It's just a practice session. I'll be fine."

"Aw…are you sure? That bruise doesn't look too good…"

"I'm fine!"

"You sure?" Silas cackles. "I thought I heard you say that you wanted to rest your head in Camilla's lap."

Camilla's eyes lit up. "Oh really? Did you want to spend some... _quality_  time with your sister?"

"N-no! No! Silas! Help!  _Ack!_ "

Azura giggled, amused by the normally calm and laid-back's prince's look of flustered panic as he desperately tried to fend off Camilla with a single hand while Silas stood back, leaning on the counter, wheezing with laughter.

Elise frowns as she looks from her to Corrin, and then back again. She grins.

" _Oooooh_ ,  _Azura!_ " she says in a sing-song voice. " _I'm going to tell—"_

"Don't you even dare!" Azura squeaked as she grabbed Elise's shoulder and forces her down into her seat. Both Elise and Sakura giggle at Azura's uncharacteristically flustered expression.

She sighs as she sits back down and claps her hands together on the table in front of her. "Fine," she said. "I…may or may not have an interest in Corrin."

"B-but why?" Sakura asks. "N-not that I'm saying he's bad, b-but why?"

Azura closes her eyes. "It's a long story, so please listen to me, alright? I would very much like it if no one else knew about this."

Elise held her pinky out towards Azura. "I pinky promise!"

"Er, y-yeah! I promise too!," Sakura chimed in.

Azura sighed. This would be embarrassing beyond belief, but that drop of sunlight was still present in her body.

"It all started when he snuck up on me at the lake, in Hoshido…"

* * *

Corrin groaned and leaned back in his chair as he tossed aside another pile of reports. An hour ago, it had been about the lack of sufficient cavalry swords for the Nohrian cavalry. Now, it was the lack of naginatas for the Hoshidan pikemen. Life was all a game of checks and balances.

Corrin didn't even bother looking up as he heard a knock at his door. "Come in!" he called.

The study door slowly opened to reveal Azura, Ryoma, and Xander standing behind it. Corrin glanced up and felt his heart lurch at the sight of Azura peeking out from behind Ryoma.

"We had a meeting today?" Xander said as he walked into the room and gently pulled out a chair for Ryoma, Azura, and himself.

Corrin nodded.

"What's the meeting about then?" Ryoma asked. "I was hoping to make a trip back into our world to make sure the rest of the Hoshidan army that you wanted me to call on hasn't killed any Nohrians yet."

"I'm sure Yukimura can take care of them for another few days without you breathing down his neck," Corrin said, finally setting aside his quill and paper as he looked up at the three. "That brings me to our next point, funnily enough."

"What is it?" Xander asked.

"I don't if you know this or not, but I recently received a report of a series of murders. There were four murders, all four of them officers. Two from Hoshido, and the rest of Nohr."

Xander frowned. "Yes, I'm aware of it. We're still launching an investigation as we speak. Why is this—"

"What's interesting is how all of those officers held the other side in a…relatively temperate view," Corrin explained. "None of those officers hated the other side, and all of them only fought against each other simply because they had too."

"I promise, Corrin, that we'll find the culprits. Might—"

"That's not what I was asking for," Corrin interrupted gently. "Kaze and Jakob have already found those responsible, and are currently holding them in the prison even as we speak. The only problem is…I can't execute them."

"Why not?" Xander asked.

Corrin rubbed his eyes. "I can't execute them because then there would be an uproar. As much as I hate it, and as much as you two feel about me, to the Nohrians, I'm a traitor for refusing to destroy Hoshido. To the Hoshidans, I'm a traitor because I was one of the sole survivors of the assassination on my mother's death. You see the problem here?"

The crinkle on Xander's forehead deepened. "You can't execute them because…"

"…people might think you're starting to see yourself as a judge." Ryoma finished.

Corrin snapped his fingers. "Exactly. That's why I'm asking you two to do it for me."

"U-us two?" Xander asked. "But I thought you were—"

"I know. I'm the one responsible for leading our armies to victory against Va—er, our hidden enemy, but the only reason both armies follow me at all right now is because I have you two supporting me. I'm positive that if you two weren't here, there would've been an all-out battle raging in our castle right now. We need to convince both sides that I'm impartial, and that I don't support one side over the other."

Ryoma nodded. "I see. That makes sense. If you truly believe this is the best way of handling such a situation, then I suppose we have no choice."

Xander crossed his arms. "Well, you are the one leading us, which means you can afford to ignore my reasoning if you want," he agreed, "But allow me to ask one question: what is this common enemy you and Azura always speak of? Our armies have been gathering here and at The Bottomless Canyon for nearly a month now, and yet you still refuse to tell us the name of our enemy."

Corrin faltered, and this was where Azura decided to step in. "Do you trust Corrin?" she asked.

Xander frowned. "O-of course! Why wouldn't—"

"Then trust him when he says that he'll tell you everything in due course."

"Our enemy works best in secret," Corrin elaborated. "The enemy has planted spies  _everywhere._ If word of our plan was to get out to them, they would be able to stop this whole war right now, that's how threatening it can be. I'm sorry, Xander. I'm sorry, Ryoma, but until we're both absolutely positive that we're ready to share the information, you'll just have to work under the context that there is a hidden enemy that is intent on destroying the kingdoms of both Hoshido and Nohr."

Xander sighed. "Secretive as always, you two," he said, shaking his head. "Very well, if you deign not to share any information with us, so be it. All I ask for is that you two will let us know what's going on once you feel like you're ready to tell us everything."

"Likewise," Ryoma rumbled.

"I will, Xander," Corrin promised. "Meeting adjourned!"

Xander and Ryoma both stood up and pushed in their chairs as they left the room, murmuring to each other as they closed the door behind them. Azura sighed and stood up, only to sit back down on Corrin's desk. He glanced up at her.

"What do you need?" he asked.

Azura shrugged. "Oh, nothing much. You sounded…very professional back there, did you know?"

"Did I now?" Corrin replied in a dull tone. "Well, I am the leader of one of the world's most fragile alliances. I mean, if the alliance between Hoshido and Nohr was any weaker, I could've just dropped my dragonstone on it and it would shatter."

Azura chuckled and peered over Corrin's shoulder. "What're you looking at?"

Corrin sighed. "Oh, just your usual complaints of Hoshidans being too Hoshidan by the Nohrians, and the Nohrians being too Nohrian by the Hoshidans."

"Sounds…fun," she said.

"Uh-huh."

Silence passed between the two of them until Azura broke the silence by asking, "If you want, I could do the paperwork for you."

Corrin shook his head. "No, it's fine. I'm sorry Azura, but you're not exactly a people person." He glanced up at her, a glint in his eye. "You're shy. You're blunt. And you spend too much time just staring at the person without breaking eye contact than actually talking to people."

Corrin's eye twitched in annoyance as he read a particularly infuriating report. " _Ergh!_  I  _hate_ all this paper work!" he growled.

Azura tilted her head. "Well, I  _did_  ask if you wanted to switch with me, but you said no."

Corrin broke down into fake sobs as he rested his head in his arms. "I swear," he said, his voice muffled. "If I had to choose between doing this kind of paperwork for the rest of my life, or have to fend off another one of Anankos' invasion on this castle, I would choose the invasion. Every. Single. Time."

Azura laughed again. "Come on, you," she quipped. "The sooner you get this over with, the sooner you can relax."

"I can't though, that's the problem!" a single red eye peeked out at her from between his arm's shadows. "Everyday, there's just  _so_  many reports and paper works and issues about the most trivial of things! How do people even do this for a living?"

"Well, most of the time, they usually have multiple people working with them, so they're not overwhelmed," Azura explained.

"Sounds nice," Corrin grumbled. "Whatever, I'm going to take a quick nap. Gods know how many hours of sleep I'll get this time."

Azura laughed, though it was more of a pity laugh than an actual laugh. It was well-known around the army that Corrin spent many nights without sleeping due to the amount of work and stress both Hoshido and Nohr caused him. Ironically, it was because of his lack of sleep that caused Nohr and Hoshido to behave as well as they did.

Despite neither side particularly liking Corrin very much, both respected Corrin for refusing to choose between his family, and there were a few groups here and there that actually did like Corrin, courtesy of his charming and laid-back nature, and as such, the Hoshidans and Nohrians treated each other as civilly as possible, if only to prevent Corrin from doing extra work.

Azura patted Corrin on the shoulder. "It's going to be alright, Corrin."

"Mmph…"

"Do you want me to sing you a lullaby, to help you sleep?"

"I'm not actually going to sleep. I just wanted to rest my eyes for a bit."

"Well, do you?"

Corrin glared at her again. "If you ask me if I want to rest my head on your lap…"

Azura laughed again. "Don't worry. I won't."

"Hmph."

Azura looked over Corrin as he rested his head in his arms. She was tempted to reach out to stroke his hair, but thought against it. Corrin, despite his laid-back nature, was not one who enjoyed being fondled like a pet.

"Hey, Azura?"

"Hm?"

"About last night…"

Azura bit her lip. "What about it?"

Corrin sighed. "I was thinking about how we always talked about those kinds of things when we're alone together, and I was just wanted to apologize for how awkward it must've been for you."

Azura frowned. "What do you mean?"

Corrin sat up and looked at Azura. "Well, I mean, you sort of hugged me, and then I hugged you back, and then—"

"Sh…" Azura leaned over to place a finger on Corrin's lips. "Remember what I said about me helping you helps me just as much as it helps you?"

Corrin nodded.

"Well, so does hugging you, somehow."

Corrin's eyes widened and he opened his lips to say something, but a sudden explosion suddenly shook the castle, causing some of the paper work on Corrin's desk to flutter to the floor.

"Oh come on!" he complained as the two of them jumped to their feet.

"What's going on?" he asked, as another explosion shook the castle, causing Azura to stumble backwards and fall into a pile of books beside the desk.

"Oh! Sorry!" she apologized.

Corrin waved her apology away. "It's fine." He strode over to the armor stand where Yato was leaning against it and buckled the weapon to his belt. At the exact same time, Kaze stepped out from behind the armor stand, casting a furtive glance at Azura out the corner of his eye.

"Kaze, what's going on?" Corrin asked.

"Milord, a portal has appeared on the castle grounds. A vanguard of those invisible soldiers and Faceless are swarming into the courtyard," Kaze reported.

"What? Here?" Corrin exclaimed. "But that's impossible! Lilith would've never let anyone besides us into the astral plane!"

"Impossible or not, milord, we have a horde of enemies swarming into the castle, and our current numbers won't be able to stem them for long."

Corrin scowled and rubbed his eyes. "All of the times I asked for a choice between paperwork and fighting," he muttered.

He ran over to the balcony to take in sight of the Vallites and Faceless sweeping aside and killing off anyone unfortunate enough to be in the courtyard at this time. "Kaze," he called.

The ninja instantly snapped to attention. "Yes, milord?"

"Relay this message to Xander, Ryoma, and the rest of my siblings. Get all the women and the children away from the courtyard, and have what guards stationed in the area to close off any entrances or doorways to other parts of the castle, while leaving the entrance to the main hall open. We have to keep them contained in the courtyard. If there's any other doorways open in that courtyard, they'll take them and use them to spread themselves throughout the castle. Once that happens, there's no way we'll be able to destroy the portal and defend the rest of the castle at the same time."

"Of course, milord," Kaze said.

"Another thing, if you find Ryoma or Xander, tell them to arrange their spearmen and pikemen into a wedge-shaped formation, with shieldbearers to the sides. That should be able to buy us sometime until the rest of the castle is in high alert."

"Of course, by your command," Kaze said before disappearing in a puff of smoke.

Corrin nervously rubbed his dragonstone as he rested his hands on the balcony.

"What're you planning to do?" Azura asked.

"I'm going to transform and glide down there," Corrin said. "If I can get down there fast enough, I can help stop the flow of Va—enemies and Faceless."

"What about me?"

Corrin glanced towards her. "That depends. Do you want to stay up here, where it's relatively safe, or do you want to ride me down to the courtyard, so that you can help me fight?"

Azura pursed her lips. Sure, she could fight, but never something on this scale. She can handle herself in a small skirmish, but a full-blown battle? That was out of the question. Yet, there was something about sitting idly in a safe room twiddling her thumbs while Corrin and the rest of her siblings fought for their lives that made her blood boil. It wasn't right.

"What do you think?" she responded. "Just let me go grab my naginata from the armory."

"No time," he said. "You could try picking a weapon up off the ground, if you need to."

Azura sighed. "Very well then. If you insist. Are you ready?"

Corrin flashed a quick grin. "Of course I am. Question is: are you?"

Corrin pulled his dragonstone out from under his armor, grasped it tightly in one hand, and willed himself to partially transform. A flash of light temporarily blinded Azura as a dragon's head appeared on Corrin's shoulders. Platinum wings slowly unfurled themselves from his back and draped themselves over the edge of the balcony.

He turned his back towards her and knelt. "Hop on," he said, his voice mildly distorted by a metallic sheen.

Azura nodded and lifted up the hem of her dress, to make it easier for her to climb onto Corrin as she wrapped her arms around his neck. Despite the situation, she felt a pleasure in the way Corrin's strong hands grasped the underside of her legs as he stood back up, grunting slightly with the effort.

"Ready?" he asked.

Azura nodded. "Ready."

And with that, Corrin spread his wings, pumped his legs, and jumped high into the air, accompanied by the splash of water that appeared whenever he transformed. The two were silent as they glided over the sound of combat, Corrin, calm and collected, and Azura, holding onto Corrin for dear life as the sounds of clanging metal and screaming men reached their ears.


	5. Chapter 5

"Corrin! Look!" Azura shouted as she risked letting go of Corrin's neck with one arm as she pointed down to the brawl underneath them. "Over there! By the armory!"

Corrin turned his head to see—or rather  _sense_ —the silhouette of a familiar gray-haired cavalier fighting in front the small, low, gray-stoned building alongside a mix of pikemen and spearmen huddling around the armory entrance behind the wall of shields that the shield bearers had managed to set up. The spearmen and pikemen stabbed frantically into the sea of writhing purple bodies mass gathering beyond the fragile perimeter they had set out around the entrance to the armory. Silas was in the front, simultaneously both weathering the worst of the attacks and commanding the men around him to while also fending off the brunt of the Vallites' assault,

"Strengthen that left flank!" Silas shouted, pointing with his javelin. "We're almost thr—"

The cavalier glimpsed out the corner of his eye a flash of light, and he looked up to see Corrin, partially transformed, and Azura, who was hanging onto his neck, gliding toward towards the courtyard-turned-battlefield. He grinned and waved his hands over his head in an attempt to catch his liege's attention.

"Corrin! Milord! Down here!"

Silas scowled as a flash of steel nicked his calf, drawing blood. He cursed himself for his lapse in attention as his charger, upon catching the scent of its master's blood, reared ferociously, bringing its hooves down on the invader's shield, which barely managed to snap up just in time to catch the flinging hooves, leaving a noticeable dent in the wood. As his charger reared again to batter the shield, Silas drew his arm back and thrust his weapon forward at the exact moment the horse brought its front hooves down.

The invader stumbled, slack-jawed as he peered down at the javelin protruding out of his abdomen before crumpling to his knees and falling forward silently. Silas allowed himself a self-congratulatory smirk before cursing again as one of the shield-bearers next to him fell with a scream, the edge of a broken sword embedded in his shoulder. Silas watched in slow-motion as the man fell backward, the other shield bearers around him blanching as they watched their fellow solider fall silently to the ground. In an instant, the tide shifted.

When combined with either archers or soldiers who chose to wield longer-ranged weapons, a holdout comprised of a semicircle of shield bears with said archers or soldiers would be very difficult to penetrate indeed—but only if the shield line remained intact.

The instant the soldier's back sank into the blood-soaked ground, the invaders, sensing an advantage, surged forward, swiping aside the rest of the shield bearers and stabbing indiscriminately into the crowd of spearmen and pikemen, whose weapons were nearly useless in such close quarters. Silas' javelin instantly buried itself in the head of an axe-wielding invader before being torn out of his hands and snapped in half by a turning Faceless.

The beast roared, and Silas' horse skittered backwards nervously. He swore as he gazed up at the hulking beast before him. He cast a quick glance around himself. Most of the shield bearers and spearmen were already dead, and those who weren't had hastily retreated inside the armory, trying to barricade themselves in. Only a few remained outside with him, their age and scars signifying their experience and loyalty. Inwardly, Silas cursed those cowering inside, but outwardly, drew his sword and waved it over his head.

"Stay strong!" he roared. "Kill these invaders, so that others might live!"

The four or so men roared their approval and charged forward, only to be cut down by the storm of blades stabbing towards them. Silas narrowed his eyes as his sword flashed once. Twice. Then Again.

And then an armored fist collided with his chest, throwing him off his horse and against the wall of the armory, where he slid silently to the ground, a trickle of blood running down his face.

"No!" Azura screamed.

"Hold on!" Corrin voice echoed. He tucked his wings closer to his body and tipped into a steep dive, hurtling towards the low, gray-stoned building.

Azura ducked her head against the blast of wind that tore at her face. The world spun around her as Corrin rolled to his right, narrowly avoiding a duel between a Pegasus knight and a wyvern.

Corrin landed with a jarring  _boom_ , a veritable tsunami of earth, bodies, and water cascading out from beneath his landing point, tossing aside invaders and corpses alike, as Azura nimbly leapt off his back. She cast her eyes around the area for a naginata, but to her frustration, there was no signs or glimpses of the Hoshidan-style polearm. Either it had been blown away by Corrin's explosive landing, or was buried underneath the sea of bodies. Azura sighed and mentally resigned herself to having to use a sword, when a horse suddenly neighed behind her.

"Lady Azura!" Gunter called. As he rode towards her, he tossed Azura a golden naginata— _her_  golden naginata. "I think you were looking for this?"

Azura caught the weapon with an outstretched hand, her face remaining impassively blank, though her eyes showed confusion and relief. "How…how did—"

"Don't worry too hard about it, milady," Gunter replied, waving the question aside as if it were no more than a pesky fly. He turned towards Corrin, who was helping Silas struggle to his feet.

"Milord. Lord Ryoma and Lord Xa—"

"Give us a moment, Gunter, will you?" Corrin asked. "We need to make sure the armory is secure and that everyone here is alright."

Gunter frowned. "But milo—"

Corrin turned away and gently set Silas down against the wall. He wiped his nose with the back of his hand and looked up at the half-dragon.

"Are you alright?" Corrin asked. "What happened?

"It all happened so quickly," he said, coughing. "One minute I was training a batch of recruits, the next, they just  _appeared_  out of that…that  _thing_." He pointed towards a swirling purple portal floating in mid air, in front of Lilith's shrine. In the distance, Corrin could barely make out some of Yukimara's puppets defending the dragon's shrine. As they watched, another group of invaders and Faceless emerged out of the portal and barreled towards them.

Corrin bit his lip. Most of the lesser foot soldiers in the courtyard were already dead, or were too wounded to fight. Unless they destroyed or found some way to stop the flow of Vallites, the castle would be soon overrun. Before Corrin could do so much as unsheathe Yato, the sky around them darkened, and Corrin felt his hair stand on end as a wave of lightning bolts cut a swath through the group of enemies, reducing them to ash.

"Always wanted to test out my  _Thoron_ spell," came Leo's voice from behind them. "Never knew it could be so effective against enemies wearing armor."

Azura, Gunter, and Corrin all turned and sighed in relief as they saw Leo on his horse trotting confidently towards them, with easily over a hundred Nohrian soldiers at his side. Felicia, Elise, and Sakura walked besides the charger, and upon seeing the wounded Silas leaning against the wall, immediately broke off from the formation and headed towards him, pulling out healing staves and rods in the process. So focused were they, that neither Sakura nor Elise noticed the little handwave Corrin threw in their direction. Felicia, however, ordered the men still hiding within the armory to "get their sorry butts out of there," and to help her set up a medical triage, barely even sparing a glance towards Corrin. Nonplussed, Corrin waved towards Leo.

"Leo!" Corrin called. "I'm so glad you could join the fight!"

"Oh, yeah,  _suuure_ ," came another, equally scathing reply. "Say hi to the Nohrian dressed in all black amid a crowd of black-wearing soldiers, but ignore the Hoshidan prince who's  _literally_  standing next to him wearing all blue and white."

"Greetings, Takumi," was Corrin's stiff reply. Despite Corrin publicly stating that he loved all his siblings, his relationship with Takumi so far into the war was definitely something that could be used to disprove that statement.

Takumi had never liked Corrin, due to him feeling as if he had stolen his "place" of being Hoshido's second prince, despite Corrin, Ryoma, Azura, and his retainers telling him otherwise. Corrin, while remaining as courteous and polite as he could, obviously disdained and distasted the hostility towards him, and so "conversations" between the two princes rarely traversed past simple, curt statements.

"I mean, how could you? I was the  _only_  one who—"

"In fairness, Takumi," Azura interrupted. "Leo  _was_  sitting on top of his horse, and you  _were_  sort of hiding behind another soldier, so it's justified that Corrin didn't see you at first."

Takumi sheepishly rubbed the back of his head. "Well—er, yeah…I guess that makes a lot more sense in hindsight," he muttered. For whatever reason, despite him not liking Corrin based solely on the fact that he was basically considered all but a foreigner upon his return to Hoshido, Takumi rarely talked to Azura in the same way he talked to Corrin.

"Corrin. Tell me, what was the enemy's position when you leapt so recklessly out of your tower?" Leo asked. "Where were their defensive lines set up? Where were their forces congealing the most and where did they head off to?"

Corrin blinked. "I—er, what?"

Leo rolled his eyes. "As expected. I really don't know why I bother helping you, if you can't even help yourself."

"T-that's not fair, Leo!" Corrin protested. "Kaze told me that we were under attack, and all I had time for was to grab Yato, grab Azura, and jump down from my study! If I hadn't jumped out like that, Silas would've been killed!" To accentuate his point, his gestured towards Silas, who was being fussed over by Sakura and Flore.

Leo rolled his eyes. "Excuses, excuses."

"You call saving Si—"

"Nevertheless, such behavior is to be expected from one as caring as you, saving your best friend's life. So I guess this time, I'll help you out."

Leo dismounted his horse and strode over to Corrin, pulling out a piece of parchment while ordering to the soldiers, "Half of you, form a defensive line around me. The rest of you, defend the northern flank. Let nothing through, or else consider yourself lucky if the invaders get to you first before I do."

As one, the Nohrian vanguard snapped a salute, shouting, "As you wish, milord," before separating off to their assigned roles, leaving only Takumi standing rather awkwardly in the space which was once occupied by a crowd. Shifting uneasily, he reluctantly strode over to the rest of them, shooting a glare at Corrin in the process. In return, Corrin gave him a  _are you kidding me? We're in the middle of a battle!_ look, before returning his gaze to Leo.

The Nohrian prince unfolded the parchment and spread it across a shield that he had pulled under it. The map contained four large squares, surrounded by a thick, black line. Within each of the four squares were four smaller squares, each labeled with Xander's near-perfect handwriting. Leo pointed to the square labeled as  _armory_.

"This, obviously, is the armory. It is the same armory we're standing in front right now. Flora, Sakura, and Elise are going to set up a medical triage  _here_." A circle with a red cross in it appeared next to the  _armory_  box.

"Xander and Camilla are leading the rest of the Nohrian garrison in the northern flank, even as Lord Ryoma and Lady Hinoka are defending the southern flank. We're assuming the invader's purpose for attacking are either to inflict as much damage on our infrastructure as they can, or to use the distraction to sneak a few assassins or troops in to assassinate key members of our army. Obviously, since everyone of royal blood is down here, we can somewhat eliminate that option. Granted, said royals may still die in battle, but the chances of them dying by an assassin's blade compared to them dying by a random soldier's is roughly the same, so we can chalk the numbers up to be about the same. Either way, by preventing the enemy from moving beyond the perimeter of the courtyard, it should put an end to whatever plans they might've thought to carry out. Do you understand?"

"Uh…"

Leo sighed in exasperation and rolled his eyes again. "Of course. What was I expecting from the man that was supposed to lead the combined armies of Nohr and Hoshido?" He snapped his fingers, a series of complicated circles and words appeared on the page.

"See this?" he pointed a circle labeld  _C+A._  "That's you and Azura. See that?" This time, he pointed to an oval labelled  _R + HArmy._

"'HArmy?' What is that supposed to—"

"It stands for 'Hoshidan Army,' alright? Now pay attention!" Leo snapped. He pointed yet another circle, this time labeled as  _X + NArmy._

"As you can see, this map is a map of the castle courtyard. The big squares represent the quadrants the courtyard is naturally divided into, and the smaller squares represent the buildings, such as the armory and shrine. Lord Ryoma and his vanguard are busy defending our southern flank, while Xander and his army is defending the northern flank.  _You_ —" he jabbed a finger into Corrin's shoulder, "—will remain here, in the center. While Xander and Lord Ryoma defend the flanks, you and whatever soldiers remain will defend the center. Got it?"

"What about that circle with the red cross on it?" Corrin asked, pointing to the mentioned-shape.

"That's the medical triage. Elise, Sakura, Felicia, Jakob, and Flora will be stationed there. Any wounded soldiers will retreat from the fighting to regroup here, which means you have the most important job of them all: defending the medical triage. Don't mess up."

"Are you sure  _Corrin_  is going to be able to handle it?" Takumi asked. "I mean, wouldn't it be a lot easier if  _I_  was the one to hold the position?"

"That's because you  _are_ , Prince Takumi," Leo replied, equally as frostily. He pointed to Corrin's treehouse. "You'll climb up to Corrin's treehouse, and from there, you'll snipe down any enemies who break past the lines, as well any airborne targets giving our men trouble."

Takumi wrinkled his noise. "But why Corrin's treehouse? Couldn't I do the same from, I don't the castle battlements?"

Leo facepalmed. "Because Corrin's treehouse is the only place in this whole castle where you can have a clear line of sight to all three flanks. If you snipe from the castle battlements, the opposite side will be too far away for you to accurately hit your targets."

Leo lifted a finger as Takumi opened his mouth to retort an explosive sentence. "Not saying that you  _aren't_  able to hit targets from such a distance, but because you can't. At that distance, you might as well be shooting into a crowd of black and white sheep and hoping you'll get a pink one. It'll be too difficult—er,  _impossible,_  for one, even as skilled as you, to shoot from such a distance without accidentally killing one of our own.

Takumi nodded begrudgingly. "I…guess that makes sense now that I think about it," he muttered begrudgingly, though clearly unhappy with it.

Azura coughed meekly into her hand. "What about me?" she asked. "What can I do?"

"You can stay with me," Corrin said.

"W-with you?" Azura asked. "B-but wouldn't I be more useful helping the healers? M-my naginata isn't really meant for this kind of fighting and—"

Corrin rested his hand on her shoulders and looked her in the eyes. "Trust me, I know logically, you would probably be a lot safer if you were to stay in the back, but in the heat of battle, I would have no one else other than you at my side."

"But…"

"But nothing. I want you to fight beside me," Corrin said, smiling. "nothing is going to make me change my mind, alright? I know you're not happy with this, but would you really be happier if I was to order you to the back of the battle, away from harm?"

Azura begrudgingly shook her head. Corrin smiled and clapped her shoulder. "Alright then, I guess," she sighed. She quickly gave him a small embrace. "Stay safe, will you? If not for your sake, but at least for mine?"

Corrin grinned, the tips of his ears turning a light shade of red. He pulled out his dragonstone necklace and tapped the glowing blue stone. "Hey, don't worry about me. I'm half dragon, remember?"

The words were barely past his lips before he clenched the dragonstone in his hands. With a flash of light, his head was replaced by its draconic counterpart, and his left arm transitioned into a wicked-looking scythe-like weapon. He turned his head towards her, nodded once, before flinging himself towards a group of Vallites charging towards a group of panicked swordsmen.

Azura let her smile linger on her face too long, however, and Leo snapped his finger in front of her nose. She blinked, startled.

"What?"

"Uh, we're still in the middle of a battle, you know. Fight now, share smiles later, alright? And besides, once this is all over,  _then_  you two can resume whatever lovemaking you were doing." For whatever reason, Leo cast an uncharacteristically nervous glance towards Takumi, who had pretended to be cleaning Fujin Yumi when Corrin had started talking to Azura.

Azura frowned, the implications of what Leo just said crashing down upon her. "W-wait, what do you mean 'lovemaking?'"

Too late. Leo had already turned away with a flourish of his cape and had clambered back onto his horse to ride it back into the fray. Azura sighed again and clasped her pendant in her hand as she glimpsed what appeared to be a dragon goring and tossing a Faceless around as if it weighed as much as an infant.

"Stay safe, Corrin."

* * *

Arrows bounced off of Corrin's chest as he reared and slammed his front paws down onto the two unfortunate Vallite archers in front of him. Where his paws made contact with the earth, a geyser of water shot out.

He spun around and caught a Faceless with his antler-horns, throwing the creature up and over the wall, roaring as it fell. Corrin looked around. All around him, he smelled blood, and fear, and metal. He bowed his head instinctively to cover his eyes, or rather  _lack_  of, as arrows fell towards him. Corrin was very well aware of the fact how none of these arrows would ever even have a chance of piercing his scales. Still, it was better to be safe than sorry.

Behind him, he sensed the outline of Silas riding up to him, his lance in his right hand and a sword in the left as he viciously slashed down any enemies who stood between him and Corrin. Besides Silas, Corrin also sensed the presence of Kaze.

He could never see Kaze's outline, even in his draconic form, but he always somehow  _knew_  whether or not Kaze was present or not . Corrin pushed the notion of asking Kaze about it to the back of his mind as he acknowledged the two of them by looking at them and bowing his head.

"Corrin! If you can hear me, we need to destroy the portal!" Silas shouted.

"Leo theorized that if we could buy him enough time, he would be able to devise a spell that could shut the portal down, thus ending the attack" Kaze added. Kaze and Silas were brave men indeed. Not many people would be willing to ride up to a dragon, especially if said dragon was covered in the blood and gore of its enemies. Corrin transformed back into his human form as to allow easier communication. He could talk to them using his telepathy-sense-thing, but Lilith had warned that a human's minds were more fragile than that of a dragon, and would pose the risk of mentally damaging them if the force of his message was too strong.

Pushing himself off the ground, he nodded and replied, "Rally the men and see if you two can give Leo the time and space he needs!"

Silas and Kaze nodded. The gray-haired cavalier turned his horse around and galloped towards the edge of the battlefield to round up and rally the soldiers. Kaze turned around and disappeared, no doubt to relay the plan to Leo. Corrin saw in the edge of his vision a Vallite berserker sprinting towards him, a double-edged battleaxe raised high above its head. Corrin tore Yato from its sheath as he slashed the berserker across the hip, nearly cutting him in twain. Letting out a grim smile, Corrin made his way over to the next enemy, and the next, and the next. This was definitely going to be interesting.

* * *

Azura sighed again as she sat on the ground in front of the triage, looking over the battlefield. The ends of her hair were covered in dirt and blood, and blood flowed gently from a cut on her upper-left arm where a Vallite berserker had gouged her with an axe while turning about. Despite her feelings of exhaustion, and her many nicks and cuts, she knew she was lucky to have fared as well as she did.

The battle was going poorly, for both sides. The combined armies of Nohr, Hoshido, and Corrin's forces couldn't push past the wave of invaders that kept coming through the portal, yet the waves of enemies slowly trickled down from forty every five minutes, to twenty every ten minutes. The battle would always progress as thus; the fresh horde of reinforcements would bolster the existing group from before, and they would nearly break through the defensive lines, only for the line to hold and slowly push them back towards the portal just as another group emerged.

Now, the flow of the battle was a lot more exaggerated, a lot more desperate. The Vallites would push the combined armies of Nohr and Hoshido back before the combined group would push them back towards the portal. At one point, Arthur was even able to push past the desperate defense the Vallites created, though through some sort of cosmic misfortune, he slipped on a patch of mud and was almost trampled to death before Benny had reached through and managed to drag him back.

She knew that Anankos was slowly running out of servants to throw at them. Sure, he may be able to create an infinite number of them, but creating new servants takes time, time for which the Hoshidans and Nohrians could take advantage of.

Despite the reduced number of enemies, everyone was tired. Azura could see it in the faces of the men that retreated to the makeshift triage/armory. Faces haggard, arms hanging loosely by their sides, dull and unfocused eyes as they slapped their weapons onto the broken weapons rack before heading into the armory and coming back out with another weapon.

Even Azura could start to feel the fatigue weigh itself in on her bones, even though she had remained largely absent from the fight. Throughout the course of the fight, Azura glimpsed Ryoma and Xander once or twice, wading through the waves of enemies, cutting them down left and right as indiscriminately as a Hoshidan farmer would to barley stalks.

Camilla and Hinoka led a large group of thirty or so wyvern and Pegasus knights down onto the battlefield, causing mass panic and chaos whenever they struck. Takumi was still perched on top of Corrin's treehouse, though every so often, he would jump down to Leo, who was positioned behind a makeshift barricade made of spears, wood, and scraps of rope and armor, to tell him information regarding changes to the invader's tactics and positioning. Leo, in return, would order Takumi back to his post, but not without a curt thanks or pat on the shoulder, which made the Hoshidan prince smirk a little bit, despite his prejudice against Nohrians.

But as the battle waged on, their forces were slowly pushed further and further back. Men fell like leaves before a coming storm, and despite their relatively large garrison, Azura knew that if they didn't either push them back completely or destroy the portal soon, the defenders would be overrun.

Leo was forced to retreat when a wave of Faceless broke through the makeshift barricade. Thankfully, Takumi was able to cut down the group of a dozen or so creatures before they were able to overwhelm the defenders. Xander and Laslow were dragged back to the triage, blood spurting out of a wound in his shoulder as Peri and Selena desperately explained the situation.

Xander had taken an arrow straight to the shoulder, causing his horse to rear at the slackening of the reins, tossing him to the ground. Laslow had to single-handedly fend off the group of nearly six invaders by himself, using his natural flexibility as dancer to evade blows. For a time, it worked, until a Faceless' fist smashed himself into his chest. From there, it all went downhill.

Ryoma was forced to retreat when a stray invader somehow managed to cut his entire hand off. It took the combined efforts of Azura and Kaze to drag the hot-blooded samurai away from the fight as Saizo and Kagero covered their retreat. Azura shuddered at the memory. She had let out a rare, genuine scream of terror when she saw Ryoma's hand twitching on the ground. Normally, she was unaffected by her horror stories, but just the  _way_ her brother's hand twitched made it seem all the more unnatural.

Sakura and Elise were forced to put Ryoma to a magically-enhanced sleep, as in his current state, he would probably do more harm to himself, and was immediately carted into the castle's actual infirmary, where they had more available tools to reattach his severed hand.

A swath of arrows cut down nearly half of the wyvern and Pegasus knights, sending the animals crashing into the ground, crushing friend and foe alike. Azura grimaced at the sound of men screaming in pain and terror as a two-ton pound reptile flattened them.

But despite all that and more, the worst part of it all was Corrin's absence. Azura had grown used to fighting next to Corrin, even though most of the time, he, Xander, and Ryoma would outstrip her and cause her to fall to the back of the battle. Save for an instance where she had seen Corrin dance his way through a swath of Faceless, cutting down the creatures with both dragon fang and sword alike, ever since he had dove into the thick of the battle three hours ago, Azura hadn't seen him since.

And that scared her.

Azura sighed and pushed to her feet using her naginata, taking a moment to check her legs for any signs of wounds or dirt. Azura was never one to be vain or proud of her appearance, instead thanking the gods for her modest person. She knew she would never be as endowed as Camilla, or as charming and bubbly as Felicia, but at the very least, at least they didn't have her legs. She admired them, not only because they were one of the few things she could take pride in, but because they were one of her most defining features, and she glimpsed Corrin once or twice glancing at her legs out the corner of her eye. It pleased her, in a perverse way, though she didn't really know the reason why.

Azura sighed again as she spared a second to run a critical eye over her naginata. The weapon would definitely need repairs after today. The ends were covered in blood and grime, and one of the tips had been snapped off, courtesy of Arthur. As Azura finished off a wounded Vallite, Arthur had stumbled backwards as he was fencing with another Vallite and tripped over her one naginta's many prongs. She wasn't angry at him, though she was often exasperated at Arthur's sometimes comically bad luck.

Azura let out a small sigh as she remembered the sight of Corrin dancing his way through the Vallite ranks, cutting down foes left and right, flicking the masks and heads off the Faceless as easily flicking the off heads of barley stalks. Between Laslow and Corrin, she couldn't decide who was more graceful in combat. While Laslow was more agile and confident in general, Corrin just seemed…more fluid. She had seen him slash a Vallite berserker from shoulder to hip, turn around, jump and impale a Faceless with a spear-like appendage that had emerged from his arm, all without hesitating or breaking stride.

As she hobbled her way towards the edge of the battlefield, a healer ran up to her, offering to heal her wounds. She politely declined, stating that her wounds were not as bad as the rest of the army's. Put off by her response, the healer nodded before running to the next person.

They had lost many; the ground was littered with the corpses of Vallite, Hoshidan, and Nohrians alike. They would be hard-pressed to clean up afterwards, the bodies of the Vallites burned and buried, respectively. Thankfully the Faceless left behind no corpses to clean, only their heavy iron masks and chains which could later be re-purposed into something else. She knew Lilith could probably snap her fingers and have all the bodies and weapons and blood vanish, but that seemed wrong to ask of her. 

_Oh, we're done here. Do your weird astral dragon thing, Lilith. Excuse us, we're all going to go take a nap._

Azura let out a small smile, though in her mind, she felt no joy or happiness in it.

"How funny. The Hoshidans and Nohrians fought each other for almost a century, only for them to fight alongside each other to reveal they each have the same blood inside every one of them," Azura had noted to Flora within the triage when she retreated for a quick heal for a small scratch on her leg. The cut wasn't serious, but it was relatively painful, and she found herself unable to put any weight on it.

Felecia had knocked Flora in the back of head with a lance hard enough where she had received a minor concussion, forcing her to exit the battle. Flora nodded thoughtfully as she glanced at Jakob, who was engaged in wrapping a bandage around one of Benny's massive arms.

She stooped down to check on a nearby Nohrian soldier, who had stuck his sword into the ground, resting his hands and head on the pommel as he took several breaths. To her surprise, it was Selena, the red-haired retainer of Camilla. A nasty looking cut was open on her arm, but Selena did not seem to notice or care. She touched her on the shoulder and suggested that she return to the healer's tent. Selena refused, drawing herself back up and shaking her long-red hair free of the hide-skin helmet she wore on her head, stating that, "Where I come from, Lady Azura, if you had an arm, could stand, and weren't dead, you could still fight."

Azura pursed her lips, surprised. "W-well, if you insist," she said.

She turned and walked away, but paused for a brief moment, a small smile breaking out on her face as she heard Selena draw her sword out of the ground and stagger away, towards the direction of the medical triage. Most of the people she had tried to help at first had refused to retreat, stating that they had a responsibility to the army. As the battle had dragged on, even the soldiers who were the most stubborn at first started taking her advice and retreated when she had asked them barely more than twice.

Azura was glad they had started listening to her. She knew that the more people they had on the front lines, the easier they would be able to push back the Vallites, but for some reason, she couldn't fathom how some people got hurt so easily. Is it really that hard to dodge an incoming spear thrown from over fifty feet away?

She saw another Nohrian soldier dueling with a Vallite soldier. She sprinted towards the two, her feet barely skipping the floor as she reared up her arm and snapped it forward, stabbing the Vallite in the arm, allowing the Nohrian to follow up with a slash to the chest. He nodded in thanks, before retreating towards the triage. Azura watched him hobble away, before continuing her calculated stumble towards the edge of the battlefield.

Azura hissed with pain as she stepped on a dagger, the blade poking a particularly sensitive spot on her feet where one of Garon's concubine's children had burned her feet with an iron poker by "accident". It usually never bothered her, and there was no sign of the blemish after she had paid a visit to one of Garon's clerics, but for some reason, the dagger stabbing her foot through there had hurt more than usual. Azura stumbled, twisting her ankle as she fell.

_Really?_

After surviving everything today, this is how she's going to end up? With a sprained ankle because she wasn't watching where she was going? Azura blew a strand of hair out of her face in exasperation as she tried to see how badly sprained her ankle was.

As she did so, she felt the ground shake rhythmically beneath her, and heard a roar from behind her. She looked behind her, and saw a Faceless charging towards her, a sword point sticking through its gut, as if it had been stabbed from behind. A single red light shone brightly through one of the holes in its mask.

The cold hands of fear gripped her heart. She was never scared of Faceless, but something about her being crippled on the ground, unable to move as she watched what might be the instrument of death approach her terrified her.

She couldn't move, and she couldn't defend herself. Her naginata required her to be on her feet in order to use it effectively, if at all, and her sprained ankle prevented her moving easily.

The monster took another step towards her. Azura tried to get to her feet, ignoring the screams her ankle threw at her as she tried to stand. If she could at least stay on her feet for about a minute, maybe she could defeat the creature.

She never had a chance. As she tried to get up by using her arms to push herself off the ground, the monster was already upon her. A giant, green, muscular hand closed around her neck, lifting her off of the ground. Azura desperately tried to pry the fingers around her throat off of her, but she may have been trying to rip a boulder in half. She gasped for breath as she glanced at the iron mask covering the creatures head. She knew what the monster was going to do; she had already seen it happen before during the battle. An unfortunate Hoshidan or Nohrian soldier would find themselves hoisted off the ground by a Faceless as it squeezed the hapless soldier until they expired, their soul and body literally crushed into a pulp.

She desperately kicked and pummeled the fist around her throat, though she knew it would never hurt the monster. She tried to escape, to wriggle her way out of the monster's hands, but none of her efforts bore fruit. The grip around her tightened, and she gasped as black and red spots appeared in the edges of her vision.

_I'm about to die…_

The notion terrified her. Not only because she had not accomplished any of the goals she had planned to achieve in her life, such as defeating Anankos, marriage, birth, and love, but because she realized that she would be forced to leave Corrin, and that Corrin would be alone without her. Tears appeared in her vision as the world slowly turned black and gray.

A roar echoed across the battlefield. Azura was dimly aware of the fact that the tightening around her neck ceased, though the steel grip was still present. She barely noticed how the Faceless turned and roared, bringing up its free hand to defend itself from whatever may attack it.

" _Azura!_ "

Corrin watched in horror as he saw the monster pick up Azura by the throat. He pushed the Vallite he was dueling away, and without consciously thinking about it, rushed towards her, determined to protect her. It reminded him too much of how he had hoisted Azura during his time as a feral dragon, and he promised himself that he would never let such a sight enter his mind again. He knew he had to save her. But she's across the entire battlefield, and there were too many people in the way.

_No…no…no… she's too far away! I'm not fast enough…_  he thought, his feet slipping on the blood-soaked grass.

_Wings…please…_

From his back sprouted a pair of wings which quickly unfurrowed and started furiously flapping, increasing his speed tenfold. The monster saw him coming, and turned to face him, roaring as it did so.

Without thinking, Corrin raised and slashed with the blade he held in his hand. The Yato was no longer just a legendary sword bound to him; it was a burning arc of destruction focused on one objective and one objective only; saving Azura.

A blur of black and white streaked across her vision. The monster holding her fell backwards, roaring in pain as it fell. From where one of its arms used to inhabit, a black liquid poured out. She fell to the floor, the giant green hand around her neck slowly dissipating as the corpse of the monster dissolved as well.

Corrin crouched a few feet away from her, Yato out to the side, the tip facing away from his body. A black liquid dripped down onto the ground, evaporating before it could even splatter the blood-soaked dirt. A pair of wings slowly folded into back before vanishing in a burst of light.

Suddenly, Corrin blanched, and his eyes widened in shock as he looked down. Corrin then did something she had never seen him done before: he  _dropped_  Yato.

It just…fell out of his hand. His other hand pressed against his sternum before he collapsed, to Azura's horror.

Corrin had never collapsed that way before, nor had he ever just  _dropped_  Yato like that before. A pit formed in Azura's heart and stomach as she crawled towards Corrin, ignoring the pain in her ankle and the dark edges appearing in her vision. Once she reached Corrin, she rolled him over onto his back.

A large lipless smile stretched across his body, directly below the ribcage, starting from the right side of his body and ending at the left. The wound was thin, but it was deep. She saw thin yellow layer of fat below Corrin's skin, followed by the red muscle. Blood was spreading from the wound. Corrin's blood.  _His_  blood. Azura desperately tried to staunch the bleeding, ignoring the fact that she was getting blood on her own hands and dress, and how Corrin's blood burned her skin, on account of his draconic heritage.

_How? How did this happen?_

The monster had carried no weapon. Azura's face paled as she remembered the sword sticking through the monster's gut. As Corrin slashed through the monster's arm, the sword must have impaled him as he attacked the monster. As he phased past the monster, momentum did all the work for him.

Azura cupped Corrin's face in her hands, desperate to give him something to focus on until a healer arrived, tears spilling from her eyelids "Corrin! Listen to my voice! You can't die here, not yet! We still need you! I need you!" Azura screamed, before looking around desperately for help, a soldier, Laslow, Kaze,  _anybody._

"Help! Help!" Azura screamed tears blurring her vision as she furiously wiped them away, dimly aware that she would be staining her face with his blood.

Now was not the time to break down and start crying. Corrin needed her right now, and Azura needed him. A nearby Hoshidan soldier noticed, and rushed to her side, asking what was wrong, concerned etched on his face

Azura did not have time to explain. "Quick! You have to fetch a healer. Sakura, Elise, it doesn't matter, get help!" Azura ordered. The soldier nodded, his eyes wide with shock.

"What are you doing?  _GO!"_  Azura screamed, sending the soldier desperately running towards the bivouac, shouting and waving his arms as he approached it.

"Azura…" Corrin whispered, barely able to get the words past his lips. Azura instantly turned her head to look at him.

Corrin's unfocused red eyes sharpened and swiveled to meet Azura's golden eyes. He raised a bloody hand and touched her face, wiping a tear away.

"Please…please t-tell me you're alright…I c-couldn't stand…to see you hurt…" Corrin whispered, echoing what his own mother had asked him as she lay dying in his arms, so long ago.

Azura nodded, putting a hand behind Corrin's hand, her other hand resting on his cheek. Corrin opened his mouth again, his words even fainter than before.

"Please…d-don't…cry…" Corrin managed to whisper before his eyes rolled into the back of his head, the hand touching Azura's face dropping to the side of his body. Azura felt cold all of a sudden.

"No! Corrin! Corrin! Look at me! Answer me!" Azura screamed. She screamed his name again, this time so loudly, her broke broke, coppery blood coating the back of her throat .She felt rough hands grab her shoulder and pull her away. She fought and scratched, desperate to remain by Corrin's side.

She was barely aware of the fact that she was going to pass out, the dark edges in her vision slowly creeping inwards. The last feeling she felt that of regret, and her last thought was of Corrin.


	6. Chapter 6

Azura groaned as she blearily opened her eyes. She had a  _killer_ headache, and there was some sort of restriction on and around her neck. She blindly scrabbled at her neck, before slender yet strong fingers pried them away. Azura groaned weakly again and blinked her eyes a few more times as a familiar salmon-colored maid came into view. Upon seeing Azura's golden eyes focus on her, Felicia smiled, all traces of worry fading away from her face.

"Ah…I see you're awake now, milady," she said gently. "Here. Eat this. It'll help." There was something  _off_  about her tone, though. It was flat, a little bit duller, and Azura thought she could even detect a race of sorrow and bitterness in her voice. Before she could comment on it, a spoon full of some sort of broth pushed itself past her lips. She coughed as the broth hit the back of her throat. She tried to wave her hands to fend off Felicia's treatment, but to no avail.

About half a dozen sips later and one empty bowl, Azura finally managed to get Felicia's hands out of her face. She frowned as she realized that save for her smallclothes, she was almost completely naked. "What…what…"

"What happened?" Felicia finished. "We won."

"We…won?" There was something wrong with her voice. She tried to look down, but saw that her head was supported and framed within a halo brace, preventing her from moving her head more than a couple inches. A thick and mildly itchy bandage was wrapped around her throat, and she reached up to pull it away before Felicia stopped her again.

"You…your throat's been wounded," Felicia said sadly. "Something about the way that monster grabbed you, and the way you screamed Lord Corrin's name gravely damaged your throat. I'm afraid that until either Lady Sakura or Lady Elise takes a look at you, you're to be confined here."

"How…how long…?"

Felicia pursed her lips together as she glanced out the window at the pyre. She could see the miniature figures of Jakob, Silas, and Hinata struggling to lift up and drag away the bodies to where Azama stood, silent and respectful for once to those who lost their lives. Silas knelt down, apparently lost in thoughts, as he rested a hand on one of the bodies, his lips moving silently in some sort of prayer.

Felicia sighed and shrugged. "I'm…I don't know. We're still cleaning up after the battle, so they'll need to tend to the more…more wounded right now."

Azura tried to shake her head, but upon remembering the bandages around her neck, instead pointed a thumb towards herself as she whisper-said, "How…long…was I…"

"Oh, how long were you out? Only two days," Felicia said. "When we found you, you were screaming your heart out over Lord Corrin's—" Here, her voice broke, and she looked away as she wiped her eyes with the back of her hand. "Lord…Lord Corrin's body…"

Azura's eyes widened. "Is he—"

"He's still alive," Felicia added hastily, "but…he's not doing so well."

"What…happened…?"

"Well, judging from the eyewitnesses nearby, when that monster-thing lifted you off the ground, Corrin saw and rushed over. He managed to save you, but he didn't notice the giant sword sticking through its stomach, so when he ran past it to save you…he…he sliced himself wide open."

Azura's eyes slowly drooped together as she gazed down guiltily at her hands. So Corrin had risked his own life just to save her, then. Tears started to blur her vision as Felicia took her hands in her own. Azura flinched at the contact.

Felicia gazed at her sadly in the eyes. "I know how you feel about Lord Corrin. Trust me, I would know. But he's also one of the strongest and hard-working people I've ever met. I'm sure he'll pull through. He's survived worse before."

Azura nodded and tried to blink the tears out of her eyes as Felicia awkwardly hugged her, throwing one arm haphazardly around her shoulder while the other squeezed her hand. Azura hesitated for a second, before returning the gesture, taking care not to jostle her neck too much, which was a bit difficult.

After they separated, Azura pointed to Felicia. "Why…you?"

Felicia raised an eyebrow. "What…what do you mean?"

Azura pointed again towards Felicia. "Why…are…you…helping me?"

Felicia smiled, though her eyes and face remained haggard. "Well, Lord Corrin made me, Kaze, Jakob, Gunter, and Silas swear an oath to look after you in the event that's he's either injured, too busy, or…"

_Dead_.

"…or dead," Felicia finished. "Thankfully, it's not that last one, but even if he didn't order us to take care of you, I would've done it anyways."

Azura frowned. "…Why?"

Felicia chuckled uncertainly. "Because…you're one of my friends?" she said in a lilting voice. "And that's what friends do for each other when one of them is hurt? They take care of them?"

Azura blinked. "Fri…end?" she asked slowly.

Felicia smiled. "Well, I mean, yeah! You were sort of the only thing keeping Lord Corrin and I alive while we stuck down in Va—er, I mean  _that_  place. It's sort of hard  _not_  to like someone after they saved your life, like, I don't know? Countless times?"

She's not used to such compliments, so Azura decided instead to gaze thoughtfully out her window instead of responding, trying to avoid looking at Felicia. The maid sighed and stood up with her tray.

"Well, Lady Sakura and Princess Elise should be coming in to heal your throat sometime later today, so make sure you don't move your neck or bandages too much." Before she left the room, Felicia's head popped back in. "Er, well, I'm not really supposed to tell you this, but if you really want to, Lord Corrin's in the infirmary."

Azura nodded in thanks, but continued to stare out her window, her hands clasped in front of her. The instant she was sure Azura couldn't hear or see her, Felicia let out a huge sigh. Honestly, sometimes, the frozen wasteland that had been her and her sister's home could be warmer than Lady Azura sometimes. She took a moment to collect herself and strode forward, struggling to keep the food tray in her hands level. Despite her efforts, the contents still clattered to the ground.

Azura could not help but smile to herself as she heard to ever-so-familiar sound of Felicia crashing to the ground, followed by whatever she was holding and a string of curses and moans. Just as quickly, though, the smile faded.

_Friends…_

The very word terrified her. For the past year, the only "friend" she really had was Corrin, and that was it. It wasn't that she hated talking to others, though her social anxiety often kicked in in social situations, but rather her fear of letting people other than Corrin into her heart. She simply isn't capable of bringing herself to open up to others, especially after her childhood growing up in Garon's courts. True, she knew that not everybody she met was automatically out to get her, and it can be dreadfully lonely at times, but still…

Azura sighed and folded her hands together as she tried to close her eyes and fall back asleep, though it was difficult due to her neck halo. The last thing that passed through her mind before she delved into her waking dreams was the sight of Corrin, laying facedown on the ground, soaked in blood.

* * *

_~Three days later~_

"And…you should be set to go!" Elise chirped.

Azura's hands slowly came up to her neck as she peeled away the bandages surrounding her neck. "Are you sure it's completely healed over?" she asked.

Elise pouted and crossed her arms. "When has my healing ever done something wrong, huh?"

"Uh…"

Elise smiled and socked Azura in the arm, causing her to wince and rub the bruise. "Don't worry, big sis! I'm just joshing ya! And besides, you still look really pretty, and I'm sure Corrin'll think the same once he's you know, recovered."

Azura fought to keep her face from turning scarlet as she asked, "Do…do you know when he'll be out? Is he still recovering?"

Elise sighed and rolled her eyes. "I already told you yesterday, he's doing  _fine_. Don't worry about him, just worry about yourself!"

Azura's brows furrowed. "Yes, but—"

"But nothing!" Elise exclaimed, slashing her arm through the air as if it were Azura's complaints and objections. Upon seeing Azura's crestfallen expression though, however, Elise decided to take pity on her. "That being said, I  _guess_  I could take you there," she said subtly.

Azura perked up. "Wait, really? I thought you said that only—"

"I said I  _guess_!" Elise quipped. "But if you don't want to…"

"I do," Azura said, nodding. "I really want to see Corrin." Even as the words left her mouth, she couldn't help but feel a little bit disgusted with herself for acting like a puppy whenever its owner showed them a bag of treats.

Elise must've caught on to, because she giggled. "Alright then. Just put on some clothes. I'll wait for you outside."

* * *

"Really, Azura?" Elise asked once Azura stepped out of her room, pulling on her long, white, frilled, fingerless gloves.

"What?" Azura asked defensively.

Elise made a mock noise of disgust as she gestured to the entirety of Azura's figure. "I mean, c'mon!" she whined. "Same white dress, same gloves, same…hat…thing you always wear. You're going to see Corrin! For all you know, your face is gonna be the first thing he sees. Why do you always wear the same thing? Do you ever wear anything that  _doesn't_  reveal your leg and part of your underwear?"

"My…underwear?" Azura asked. "I'm not sure I know what—"

" _That_!" Elise exclaimed, pointing at the top of Azura's left leg. Azura followed her finger down to where she was pointing, and her face took on a very slight shade of pink as she realized what she was talking about.

"Oh! That's…not my smallclothes," she said. "It's…just a thing songstresses wear…because…it's really…it just makes it more comfortable for me to dance in, alright?"

Elise smirked. "Oh yeah,  _suuuure_ ," she drawled. "Are you sure it's got nothing to do with—"

"Can we just get on with this?" Azura snapped, her temper lashing out for once. "Just because I asked you to keep my secret about me being attracted towards Corrin from everyone, doesn't mean that you can blackmail and insult me whenever you want to."

Elise's smile drooped a little. "I'm…I'm sorry. I-I didn't mean to make you mad like that. I'm sorry," she apologized. "I wasn't trying to blackmail you, I promise!"

Azura sighed as she looked down at the Nohrian princess. She kneaded the bridge of her nose. "I suppose I was a little bit too harsh just now. Please, forgive me."

"It's fine," Elise sighed. "Let's go."

Azura wordlessly followed Elise down the corridor of the castle, out through the main gates, into the main courtyard, and towards the infirmary, which was set in a small, white building next to Lilith's shrine. Azura thought she spotted the catfish-like dragon for a split second, but when she looked again, it was gone. As they walked towards the infirmary, Azura couldn't help but look around the courtyard.

Four days ago, there were bodies strewn everywhere, blood soaking so deep into the grass that simply taking a step would soak your feet red. Buildings once destroyed during the attack were brand new, undamaged. In fact, save for a small pile of rubble resting on the far side of the courtyard, everything looked as if the attack had never happened, and even then, Azura was unsure if the pile of rubble was even there before the attack.

"They sure cleaned this up fast," she said quietly to herself.

"Yeah, they sure did," Elise chirped, looking back. "Lilith did most of the work, actually. All she did was to repair the buildings and clean up the place. She couldn't do anything about the bodies though, so we had to move them by hand."

Azura nodded thoughtfully, remembering the sight of Silas, Jakob, and Hinata struggling to drag away the bodies. "What did they do with the bodies of those who fell for our cause?"

"Well, Azama said a few words, for them. Basic stuff. And then Leo, Ryoma, and Niles helped wrapped up the ones who were relatively…whole, and sent those back to their families. The ones who weren't…we cremated them."

"And the ashes?"

"Sent back to their families, along with a letter," Elise said. "Xander stayed up three nights in a row, since he also wrote one for the Hoshidans as well."

Azura frowned. "W-wait, you said  _Ryoma_  helped with the cleanup process? I thought his hand was—"

"Yeah, we managed to stitch it back onto him," Elise said simply opening the door to the infirmary. "Luckily, turns out Leo's also a bit of an anatomist, so the whole thing went pretty easily." Elise opened the door and gestured towards Azura. "You can go first."

Azura slowly stepped into the stark white room. A shrine maiden quickly approached her, bowed, and asked if she would like anything to drink.

"We have all sorts of Nohrian and Hoshidan beverages," she offered.

"No thank you," Azura said as she looked around the building. The entire building consisted of one room, with cots lined up against every wall with a couple of feet of space in between. Curtains were lined up around every cot for privacy. In the corner of the room, towards the back and separated from the rest of the room by a drape of white curtains, was a section used for more specialized operations, such as childbirth or surgeries.

_Or having people who protected me recover_ , Azura thought darkly to herself.

She nodded her head towards the curtained area. "Is…that…"

"Yeah, that's where big brother is," Elise said, somber for once as she picked up her healing rod to help another shrine maiden deal with an uncooperative patient. "Go on. That whole section is pretty soundproof, so if there's anything you want to say to Corrin privately, we won't be able to hear. Well, within reason. We can hear you if you scream or shout, but whispers should be quiet enough."

Azura nodded gratefully as she pushed aside the curtain. What she saw made her jaw drop.

Corrin laid prone on the bed, his right arm dangling off the side of the bed, her head arched back. His white hair plastered across the pillow beneath his head as his chest heaved.

"E…Elise?" Azura called.

The Nohrian princess peeked her head in. "What's wrong?"

Azura continued staring in horror at the man lying before her. "I…I thought you said that he was fine!"

Elise grimaced. "Well…his condition's been improving ever since we brought him in, but even though we did everything we could to heal him, he still hasn't woken up yet. It may have something to do with his body going into shock, but we don't really know."

Azura slowly walked over to Corrin's side and proceeded to lift up the hem of the blanket. Elise saw what Azura was about to do and reached out with her hand to stop her. "A-Azura, I don't—"

Azura stared incomprehensibly at Corrin's midriff. His stomach, once smooth, yet toned, now yet a scar running across the length of his body, starting at one side of and ending at the other. The scar itself was raised barely less than an eighth of an inch. It was the color of it and the surrounding skin that offended Azura's eyes the most.

Growing up in Northern fortress, Corrin had little exposure to the sun, if it ever appeared over Nohr, and as such, had an almost unnatural paleness. On a normal person, the scar could've been seen by others as a trick of the light, perhaps an oddly shaped tan line of sorts. On Corrin, the scar was infinitely more noticeable.

The main of the scar had turned pink, with the edges only a slight shade lighter. It was the color of the surrounding muscle and skin that caught Azura's attention. Around the scar, Corrin's almost-white skin had turned a shade of red, creating a ghastly, lipless smile across his stomach.

"What…what is that?" Azura asked, pointing.

Elise walked over to look at what Azura was pointing at and sighed. "We don't know," she said. "Leo's been in the library for gods know how long, and so far, the only thing that came up was that this kind of symptom is only prevalent when a half-dragon is injured and struggling to stay alive."

"Stay…alive?" Azura repeated, feeling dull and slow.

Elise nodded. "He's still fighting, but I'm guessing that because he's fighting off whatever that cut did to him, he's still in this state."

Azura stared down at Corrin as she silently pulled up a chair and held Corrin's hand. "Have…have you tried do anything to help provide him with energy? Like any spells, or whatnot?"

Elise shook her head. "We've all tried. Xander and Lord Ryoma got all the mages in their armies to pour their energy in Corrin, but nothing seems to be working. It's almost as if it didn't even affect it."

Azura's hand unconsciously clutched her pendant as she squeezed his hand. "Elise…"

"Yeah?"

"Can…can you get everyone to clear out of here? Only for a few moments?"

Elise frowned. "I suppose, but why? What're you gonna do?"

Azura tightened her grip on her pendant. "An idea," she said simply. "But I can only do it if there's nobody around to hear me."

Elise chewed her lip for a second, thinking before finally nodding. "Alright, I'll see what I can do."

"Thank you."

Azura continued to stare at Corrin until the last few sounds of Elise and the shrine maidens faded into nothings, whereupon she stood up. Did she actually know what she was about to do? No. Would it ever actually work? Probably not. But she had to try anyways, because if she didn't, she would never see Corrin again.

That thought spurs her, and so Azura grips her pendant tightly and sings.

" _You are the ocean's gray waves…_

_Destine to seek, life beyond the shores…_

_Just out of reach…"_

* * *

Corrin was standing before two doors, one white, one black. He looked around behind himself. Save for the perpetual white fog around him, there was nothing.

" _Where am I?"_  he asked, his voice echoing.

No response.

" _Where am I?"_  he asked again, this time, a little bit more forcibly.

As if it had heard him, the fog thickened, condensing itself around Corrin until it was nearly impossible to see the two doors and the tips of his arms, before the fog fell away to reveal a small campfire resting on a patch of grass. Sitting next to it was a hooded man. The man gave no indication that he knew of Corrin's existence, and instead continued to prod the fire.

Corrin frowned and stepped over to him. " _H-hey, can you hear me? Where are we?"_

The hooded figure continued to prod the at the fire nonchalantly. " _A crossroads,"_  he said simply. " _Everywhere and nowhere."_

Corrin frowned. He pointed towards the doors. " _Alright, well, can you tell me where these doors lead?"_

The figure shifted his head. " _Yes._ "

" _Will you tell me?"_

_"Yes."_

Corrin waited patiently. " _Well?"_ he asked after what felt like several minutes had passed.

The figure seemed to chuckle and smile. " _Your first question was whether or not I had the ability to answer your question, and the second was whether or not I_ would _tell you, but you never actually asked me the question."_

_"Then let me ask properly,"_  Corrin said, smiling. " _Where do these doors lead, and where are we?"_

The figure rested the poker on the ground next to him and leaned back, planting his hands on the ground. " _I've already told you where we are: a crossroads. As for where those doors lead, take my advice: open the white one."_

_"The white one?"_ Corrin asked. " _Why?"_

_"Because it's not time for you to open the black one yet,"_ the man responded. " _Though I'm sure there's at least between one or a thousand people that want to see you open that door. Thankfully, even if you chose to open the black door, it would've been very hard for you to fully open it and step through it."_

Corrin frowned. " _What do you mean? You talk like you know what's going on here. Who are you?"_

The man smiled and placed his finger to his lip in a shushing gesture. " _That'll come in due time, my child, but for now, all you need to know is that your people need you._ My _people need you."_

Corrin opened his mouth to answer before he suddenly fell to his feet. A surge of strength had just surged through him for a split second, and when it left his body, he felt weaker than ever before. " _What was that?"_  he asked, gasping for breath.

The hooded figure looked around in interest. " _I…I don't know. M-maybe it's—"_

Whatever the man had been about to say was lost as the white door suddenly burst open, sucking Corrin off his feet and blinding everything in a flash of light. The man was instantly on his feet and turned towards Corrin, seemingly unfazed by the sudden brightness and force.

" _Go. Your people need you, now, more than ever. Go."_

And then the light swallowed everything.

* * *

" _A burdened heart…_

_Sinks into the ground…_

_A veil falls away without a sound…_

_Not day nor night, wrong nor right…_

_For truth and peace, you fight…"_

Azura swayed for a brief moment, before collapsing into a chair that she had pulled up behind her as a precaution. Azura tried to keep the whimper of pain from escaping her lips as she clutched her pendant even tighter, leaving angry red gouges in her palm where the metal pressed against skin.

_No change…_  Azura noted absently.  _Well, I guess I'll have to do another round…and pray it doesn't kill me._

As she shakily got back to her feet, a soft groan came out of Corrin's mouth. Azura froze, staring at him. Surely, that had been a trick right? A desperate hallucination brought on by her exhaustion and fervor to see Corrin alive, right?

But no, even Azura slowly unfroze, one of Corrin's hands weakly clawed at the air. "A…zur…a…?" he gasped.

Azura gasped, her hands moving unbidden to cover her mouth as she gazed at the man lying on the cot before her. "C…Corrin?"

"'s me," he rasped. Groaning, his hands slowly came up to rub her forehead. "Head…feels funny…though."

"Corrin!" Without thinking, Azura leaned over and cupped his cheeks in her hands. It took her everything not to drop everything and rush over to tackle Corrin in a hug. To her relief, red eyes slowly focused in on her.

"H-hey…" he said, chuckling.

Azura smiled. "Hey."

His eyes flicked downward. "What's…what's on my stomach? Everything's blurry."

"Do…do you remember what happened?" Azura asked gently.

Corrin frowned. "N-no…not much, I'm afraid. I…I was fighting and…and—" Suddenly, his eyes snapped forward. He reached up to clasp Azura's hand in his own. "Oh gods! You were about to die! I…I had to save you!"

Before Azura could intervene, Corrin suddenly sat up and tore the blanket covering his waist off. Thankfully, for both of them, Corrin was still wearing pants, but his eyes and hands immediately focused themselves on the scar. The red part of his scar had faded, leaving only his pale, now-scarred skin. Corrin gingerly ran a finger over the length of the wound before looking back up at Azura.

"What…what happened?"

Azura shifted uneasily. "Well, you didn't miss too much. You saw that I was in trouble, and you rushed over to save me."

"I think the word 'trouble' is a bit of an understatement!" Corrin protested. "That Faceless was literally about to rip your head off!"

"That being said," Azura said, trying for a smile, "I'm still alive, aren't I? And you are too."

"Yeah, but at what cost?" he mumbled as he ran his hand over the scar again. He suddenly blushed as he realized that save for the pair of trousers on his legs, he was completely naked, a fact that Azura did not ignore. She ran an eye over Corrin's bare torso, blushing ever-so-slightly at the sight of his well-toned, yet lean body.

An awkward pause passed between them.

" _Soo…_ " Corrin said, drawing out the word. "Are…are you alright then? You weren't hurt too badly, right?"

For some reason, his comment made Azura smile. " _You're_  asking if  _I'm_  alright?" she chuckled.

Corrin raised an eyebrow. "Are…are you alright though, Azura? Normally, you're not this…" he gestured towards her with an open palm, "this  _optimistic._  No offense."

"None taken," she replied. "I'm just happy to see you again, still alive."

Slowly, however, ever so slowly, tears started to glisten in her eyes as she sniffed and wiped her eyes.

"Azura…?"

Before he could do so much as widen his eyes, Azura flew forward and wrapped her arms around Corrin's neck. Corrin's eyes widened for a second before relaxing and wrapping his own arm around her. He breathed in her scent of faint strawberries, and felt himself blush at the close contact.

"I was so scared…" she whispered. "Seeing you like that, on the ground."

"Yeah…me too," he whispered back. "I…I really don't know if this whole thing is worth it anymore, to be honest." Corrin said. "This war." Azura parted from Corrin as she looked at him in surprise, one of her palms still resting against his bare chest.

"What…what do you mean?" she asked. "You can't just give up! We finally managed to unite Nohr and Hoshido together! We can't just give up because of you—"

"It's not me!" he suddenly snapped. Azura lurched backwards, startled and hurt at his sudden outburst. Whatever feeling of relief and joy before had faded, to be replaced by tension and defeat. He sighed and rubbed his eyes with his hands.

"I'm sorry," he apologized. "I-I didn't mean to yell at you like that, but what I'm…what I'm trying to say is that…I don't know how I can go on if you ever got hurt or killed," he muttered. He looked up at Azura, and for an instant, Azura could see the fear and humanity in the half-dragon's eyes. "I can't stand the thought of you being hurt like that, and…and—"

" _Sh_ …" Azura gently rested a finger on top of Corrin's lips, silencing him. "It's alright. I know how you feel…and…and the truth is, I feel the same way about you too."

Corrin frowned. "W-what?"

"F…For as long as we've known each other, I…I may have been feeling…slightly more  _drawn_  towards you than anybody else…and…and I guess what I'm trying to say is that—"

"I love you," Corrin breathed.

This time, it was Azura's turn to frown. "What?"

"I love you, Azura," Corrin said, still in that same breathy-type whisper. "I-I'm sorry for taking so long to tell you this, a-and honestly, I didn't even really k-know it until I saw you in danger, a-and I know I sort of have a reputation of having loved ones dying whenever they meet me, and I-I didn't want to curse you with the same fate, b-but I didn't think you would feel the same towards me, and—"

"It's okay," she said, just as gently, placing her finger back on his lips. "You don't have to be afraid of that anymore, because…well, I guess this'll probably be a better demonstration instead…"

In a rare moment of Azura taking the lead, she suddenly darted forward, leaning in and pressing her lips to his. She could feel his body tensing up beneath her fingers before it relaxed. A soothing calm settled over her, and for a moment, the only thing in the world was the feeling of his lips pressed against hers, and her fingers pressed against his chest. A few seconds later, something in the back of her mind clicked, and she pulled away, hiding her face with her hands and hair.

"I-I'm sorry!" she stammered, feeling like quite the fool. "I-I didn't mean for it to be so…" Her voice fell silent as Corrin reached out to touch her cheek.

"Please, stay with me," Corrin whispered. "Stay by my side, so that I can protect and love you like nothing else…"

"I will," she whispered back. "But only if you promise to stay with me, and to never let go…"

Corrin smiled and nodded. Azura laughed, a bright, cheery sound as she pressed her lips to his again, and this time, he fully reciprocated it. His hand slowly moved downwards to wrap itself around her waist, and Azura's finger slowly reached up to play with the ends of his hair. It was bliss.

And then it was shattered.

"Hey, Azura! It's been a full five minutes now! Are you still—"

Elise's jaw hit the floor as she gaped at the sight of Corrin and Azura kissing each other, their arms wrapped around each other's so tightly it was nearly impossible whose arm belonged to whom. Flushed, Azura pushed herself away from Corrin and onto the floor as Corrin gave a sheepish, yet boyish grin towards Elise.

"H-hey, Elise. Look! I'm all better—"

" _I KNEW IT!_ " she screamed. " _I knew it I knew it I knew it I knew it!"_

And then she was out the door.

Azura sighed as she picked herself up off the ground. "Oh dear," she said in faux disappointment. "I was hoping for our relationship to be kept a secret for more than a few minutes."

Corrin laughed at that, but immediately winced as his hand rested on his scar. "Ah, well, they were going to find out anyways, and besides, now we don't have to worry about keeping this whole thing under wraps."

Azura rolled her eyes. "Ever the optimistic one, you."

Corrin chuckled. "Well, maybe that's why we love each other. We balance each other out. Me, with my optimism, and you with your…your…uh…"

"My what?" Azura said, smiling.

"…your singing." Corrin finished lamely.

Azura giggled. "I don't think those two things cancel out, Corrin. If anything, they build off of one another."

"I guess you're right…"

They continued to stare at each other in a comfortable silence before the sounds of the shrine maidens entering the building brought them back to reality. Azura's eyes darted around the room. She jerked a thumb towards the curtain. "I…uh, I should probably go and let you rest."

Corrin managed to catch her wrist as she turned around. He pulled her in into another kiss, before finally letting go of her arm and gently pushing her away. "Alright then. Go, you."

Azura smiled over her shoulder at him as she disappeared behind the curtain. As she walked out of the infirmary, she unconsciously began to hum her song, only this time, not out of sorrow or necessity, but out of joy.

" _You are the ocean's gray waves…_

_Destine to seek, life beyond the shores…_

_Just out of reach…"_


	7. Chapter 7

As they expected, the news of Corrin courting Azura spread like wildfire across the castle, and by the end of the day, even the lowliest of footsoldiers knew about the news. Both of them, however, Azura especially, were incredibly relieved to hear that whatever gossip and rumors had spread were mostly benign in nature, and those who weren't were usually so outrageously absurd that even Odin were able to see through them.

That still didn't deal with the fact that Azura had been incredibly mortified at first. Despite her joking tone when Elise first walked in on them, she soon found herself be ogled at by nearly everyone she walked past. It unsettled her, though not because she wasn't used to suspicious glares and racist slurs towards her, her childhood in Nohr and Hoshido had hardened her, but because she knew that this time, they weren't saying anything bad about her, for once.

"Oh, don't worry about," Subaki had said to her when they were sharing a shift together organizing the armory. "Trust me, when I married Selena and had Caeldori, it felt like the only reason why people looked at me was because they were either disgusted with what I had done, or because they were genuinely happy for us. It took me a long time to realize it was the latter."

"Yes, but you're not the one being courted by the leader of the armies of both Hoshido and Nohr," Azura replied dryly as she forcibly shoved a polearm back onto a weapons rack "By courting me, Corrin's put me in the spotlight! And…I'm not one to…and I don't look good in the spotlight."

Subaki rose his eyebrows. "But…but aren't you a songstress? Shouldn't you be used to people staring at you?"

Azura blew her cheeks out, hearing this one argument one too many times. "It's different," she retorted. "If I were to ask you to perform your most complicated maneuver on your Pegasus right here, right now, would you be able to?"

"Of course!" Subaki snorted. "Do you want me to?"

Azura sighed and face-palmed. "That's…not what I meant," she said, shaking her head.

Surprisingly, it was Corrin who had a rougher time adjusting to the newfound attention people gave him. For one, every time he said Azura's name, whether it would be in a war meeting, during meal times, or just during casual conversations, they would all give each other knowing smiles and glances. At first, Corrin didn't mind the subtle looks, but as time wore on, he started to notice things. Things that never bothered him before were now standing out glaringly.

At first, a grin from Odin and Niles, but them being Odin and Niles, he didn't pay much heed to whatever they were doing. Then, a knowing smile from Xander. Which was then followed by an honest-to-gods  _chuckle_  from Ryoma as they were walking towards the mess hall near the armory together.

"What?" Corrin demanded, his smile slipping off his face. "What's so funny?"

Ryoma pretended to wipe a tear from the corner of his eye as he gazed down at Corrin (Ryoma was easily over six feet, and Corrin himself was barely topping five foot seven). "Oh, it's nothing," he said, still chuckling.

Corrin frowned before looking around him to make sure they were alone before abruptly pushing Ryoma behind the armory. "I swear to gods, Ryoma, everyone's been smiling and laughing these past few days, and not that I'm saying that's a bad thing, but if you're one of them too, then I honestly don't—"

"Calm down, Corrin," Ryoma said, placatingly laying his hands on Corrin's shoulders as he gently pried his hands off of him. "We're not making fun of you or Azura, honest! It's…just that seeing you two together…it  _makes_  people happy."

Corrin frowned. "What do you mean?"

Ryoma shook his head. "Corrin, you have to understand, people are  _bored_ , and people are  _scared_. As far as everyone knows, Xander and I called the armies to assemble by the Bottomless Canyon based on the word of a prince disowned by both Hoshido and Nohr. Yes, you may have won over the people's hearts in your efforts to unite Hoshido and Nohr, but that still doesn't explain  _why_  you called us here."

"I already told you, Ryoma," Corrin started. "I  _want_  to tell you, but—"

Ryoma forestalled him with a raise of his finger. "I know. You can't for some reason, but what's important right now is realizing that by having news of you courting Azura, it motivates people. You may not know it, but most of the soldiers in our armies are either at your age, or older. Most of them know what you're going through right now."

"This is starting to make less and less sense…"

Ryoma sighed and rubbed the back of his head. "I know. Lighthearted conversations aren't my forte, but what I'm trying to say is that by having the knowledge of you, an idealistic, charming, and handsome prince court Azura, a beautiful, lovely, and—"

"You really are starting to sound like Camilla."

"Is that bad?"

"No, but it's not good either."

Ryoma chuckled again and raised his hands in mock surrender. "Alright, alright. I'll stop using metaphors and get to the point. Anyways, you're a very popular man, Corrin, and Azura…is decidedly less so, but still popular in her own right. Simply hearing the news of you two courting each other is enough to bring a smile to even the most hardened of warriors. They'll be more likely to fight harder, but not for victory, but for  _you_."

Corrin blinked. "What? F-for me?"

Ryoma nodded sagely. "Yes, for you. Like I said, Corrin, you can be very charming sometimes, and charming people usually have the ability to make a lot of allies, or at the very least get people to agree with what you're saying. That's how you united Nohr and Hoshido together, isn't it?"

Corrin rubbed the back of his head. "I…guess…But I still don't see—"

"People are also more likely to fight for someone who they like. People like you. You're charming. You're brave. You're altruistic. That's what makes a good leader. That's what makes  _you_  a good leader, and people know it. Do you understand what I'm saying?"

"Eh, sort of." Corrin looked up at his brother. "So basically, what you're saying is that news about me and Azura being together is going to improve morale among the army, because the men like me, because they see me as a good leader, because I'm all charming and altruistic, and because of that, they'll fight harder for me."

Ryoma shrugged. "Eh, not in that specific order, but that's the gist of it."

"Oh." Corrin looked down at his bare feet. "What about members of my elite guard then? Why are they always smiling whenever they see us?"

Ryoma clapped Corrin on the shoulder and leaned down so his lips were next to his ear. "Now this…this is where the rumors start to distort reality." Leaning back up, Ryoma crossed his arms and said, "Everyone in your elite guard is devoted to you, and you're devoted to them, which means they can afford to be a little bit more…rambunctious towards you without fear of repercussion."

"And the normal soldiers…?"

"Their training consists of learning how to bend to authority. It would not do for the entire army to mock their lord for something they did based on rumors."

"Ah. I see. So the people in my elite guard only make fun of me because they also feel the same way as the rest of the army, but because they're so much closer to me than the rest of the army, they can afford to tease me?"

Ryoma nodded. "Basically."

Corrin frowned. "Wait wait wait, you said something about rumors back then. Care to fill me in on what people are saying?"

Here, Ryoma smirked and clapped Corrin on the shoulders as he walked out from behind the armory. "That is a talk for another day, which I will arrange a meeting for before I leave for Hoshido to arrange and manage the transportation of supplies and men, but after the two of us sit down in the lunch hall and discuss matters of less importance."

Corrin shook his head and placed a hand on his hips as he watched Ryoma walk away. "You're awfully jubilant today," he called after him, a wry smile on his lips. "Why?"

"It's because of the rumor that a lord is courting a songstress," he called back over his shoulder, chuckling.

Corrin shook his head as he jogged to catch back up with Ryoma. At least he knew Ryoma and possibly Xander weren't opposed to the idea of him courting Azura.

So far.

* * *

"Uh, Lord Corrin?"

Corrin looked up from the report he was reading and sighed to see Felicia's trademark salmon-colored hair and ice-blue eyes peeking out from behind the door in his study. "I thought I ordered you—er, no, I thought I  _asked_  you to drop the honorifics?"

Felicia pursed her lips. "S-sorry, Lo—er, Corrin. Old habits."

"It's fine," Corrin said, massaging the bridge of his nose as his gaze dropped down to the desk again. "What is it? Do you need something?"

Felicia chewed on her lip for a few seconds before saying "Lord Ryoma and Lord Xander would like to see you in the war council room."

"What for?"

Felicia looked nervously around at the cluttered study. According to Lilith, once upon a time, this used to be the old commanding officer's private quarters, though the term  _bedchamber_  would've been more accurate.

But as the war between them and Valla raged on, the "bedchamber" became less of a place for sleep and comfort and more of a place to work endlessly into the night and planning attack strategies. Not that Corrin complained.

He was happy with his tree-house, and save the occasional complaint of having the ferry several dozen books up a flight of stairs to the study, which was located in the highest room of the highest tower, by himself, he was happy with the situation.

Of course, it could also mean that Corrin actually wasn't happy with it, but he wanted her, Jakob, and Flora to focus on other things besides helping him move what felt like a library's worth of books and reports somewhere else.

"Eh, they said they really needed to talk to you."

Corrin sighed and waved a hand dismissively at her. "Tell them that I'll schedule another meeting with them later this week. I'm sort of swamped right now."

Felicia bit her lip again. She hated being the bearer of bad news. "They said  _now_."

Corrin groaned and leaned his head back as he stared up at the ceiling in frustration. They had just received reports of a new kind of Faceless terrorizing the soldiers traveling to the Bottomless Canyon, and he had to read through at least fifty more dozen-page reports before the end of the day in order to write a clear and concise summary to Leo, who was now acting as their acting-tactician, partly due to Corrin's own inexperience and partly due to Leo being ten times the strategist Corrin would ever be.

That, and the fact that he still had to finish up the reports regarding the aftermath of the attack on the castle.

"Fine," he groaned. "Tell them I'll be down in about ten minutes."

Felicia smiled and nodded, and before she lost her nerve, ducked her head back in and said, "Also, I'm happy for you and Azura. I think you two are really cute together!"

And just like that, she was gone.

Corrin stood up, his chair sliding backwards as he stared at the empty doorway. "H-hey, wait! Felicia!"

But only the sounds of ruffling papers and the distant  _clack_  of heels answered him. Corrin sighed again and sat back down I his chair as he set the reports off to the side of his massive desk in ordered portfolios. He may not be as colorful as Elise when it came to marking his things, or as neat as Xander when labelling them, or even as perfect as Leo's or Subaki's, but he knew his method of perfection was no slouch.

Sighing again, Corrin stood up, grabbed Yato, clasped his signature blue cape on, and clutched his dragonstone necklace for good luck before heading out the door.

Hopefully, the meeting wouldn't take too long. He really wanted to get the reports over with so he could sleep for once. Or better yet, spend a few hours talking with Azura.

* * *

"Lady Azura?"

"Hmm?"

Flora stepped smartly past the door leading to Azura's room. "Lady Azura?"

Azura looked up from the book she was reading towards the blue-haired maid. She was laying on her stomach on her bed, her elbows propped up to hold the book as he feet kicked idly in the air. The book was  _Hoshidan Horror Stories: IX Edition._  Corrin had gotten it for her as a gift when they started courting, which was now about a week ago.

She hadn't slept more than a few hours since then, partly due to the shivers running up her legs and spine whenever she shuttered the candle in her room, but also partly due to this warm feeling that ran up and down her legs whenever she thought about the gift, or more accurately, its sender.

Azura hastily shifted herself so that she was sitting properly on the edge of the bed and clasped her hands firmly on top of the book resting in her lap. "Er, What is it?" she asked.

Flora cleared her throat and clasped her hands primly in front of her skirt. "Lord Ryoma and Prince Xander would like to see you in the war council room," she said primly.

Azura frowned and closed the book, though not before marking the page she was on. "Why?" she asked.

"They wanted to talk to you and Corrin regarding…certain situations," Flora responded before bowing and backing out of the room. As her mane of ice-blue hair swept out the door behind her, Azura could've sworn she saw the faintest hint of a smile on the normally professional maid's face.

Azura's blood froze. She stared at the door. What were they going to talk to her and Corrin about? They haven't had sex yet, and save for hand holding and few kisses stolen away in the dark when no one was around, they haven't done anything  _that_  romantic.

Sure, they eat together, but that's only whenever Corrin was in the mess hall at the same time as her, which she felt was being more and more of a regular occurrence, and Corrin had the unfortunate bad habit of patting the heads of anyone shorter than him (which was, only like three or four people in the army) and caressing their cheeks, but that's  _Corrin_ , for god's sake. He'll stroke the cheeks of anyone just to brighten up their day, even if they won't admit.

Azura sighed as she felt her pulse slow down to its normal tempo. She set the book down on the night table next to her bed and smoothed the creases out of her dress as she stood up.

"Guess I'll have to finish this later," she said to herself, looking at the book before walking out of the room. She gingerly closed the door behind her and pressed her back to it as she took another deep breath.

 _Everything's fine_ , she told herself.  _It's just another, everyday war meeting. It's not going to be about the two of us, it's just going to be—_

"Azura! Azura!"

Azura grunted as she felt a weight slam into her. "Ow! What—"

"Did you hear? Did you hear? Did you hear?" Elise asked excitedly.

Azura frowned as she tried to pry her sister off of her. "H-hear what?"

"About the meeting!" Elise exclaimed exasperatedly. "Well, did you?"

Azura smiled faintly as she patted the top of Elise's head. "Yes, I did," she said patiently. "How much sugar did you have today?"

Elise raised four fingers. "I was helping Sakura and Hana in the kitchen, and they let me have four spoons of sugar!"

Azura frowned. "W-wait, four teaspoons, or four  _spoon_  spoons?"

"Four spoon spoons!" Elise said, beaming. "I can feel my whole body shaking! Is that good?"

"Uh…don't…don't you feel sick?" Azura asked concernedly.

"Nope! Sakura and I cook for each other a lot, and her food is always really sweet, so I guess I'm used to the amount of sugar at this point."

"Ah. I see."

"So, did you hear? Did you? Did you?"

"Calm down, Elise," Azura said patiently. "Yes, I heard about the meeting, and yes, I'm going to it right now."

"Oh! Can I come with, can I, can I?"

Azura sighed. "You know, it's going to be really hard for you to focus with this much—"

"It's  _fine_ ," Elise whined. "I promise to be on my best behavior, I promise!"

"B-but I never said…"

"Let's go!" Elise suddenly grabbed Azura's hand and started to forcefully drag her down the hallway. "Let's go! Leo and Corrin are waiting for us!"

Azura desperately tried to pry her hands free. "W-w-wait! Elise! Ow! Stop!"

* * *

"Ah, Corrin. I see that you've received our…ah, invitation," Xander said as Corrin pushed open the door leading to the war council chamber.

"No offense, but I sort of wish I hadn't," Corrin replied as he pulled back and dropped into a chair.

Ryoma chuckled. "Well, if we were to tell you what this meeting was about, would you be more interested?"

"Maybe," Corrin idly picked up and twirled a pen in his hand as he glanced at Xander and Ryoma out the corner of his eye. "I literally just received about fifty reports about a new type of Faceless soldiers are encountering on their way to the Bottomless Canyon, and I really wanted to finish up my summary on them tonight so I could—"

"So you could talk to Azura in private?" Xander finished.

Corrin was so caught off guard, he stared at his older step-brother for a full two seconds before closing his mouth and shaking his head. "W-what?" he spluttered. "No! I wanted to turn them into Leo so he could make heads-or-tails of the whole thing! You know how he's like when it comes to reports! If I don't turn those reports in by tomorrow morning, he'll—"

"Don't worry, Corrin," Ryoma said, leaning back and crossing his arms. "Xander has already talked to Leo. I'm sure he'll understand."

Corrin scoffed and shook his head. "I know you want to get along with the rest of my family better, Ryoma, but I don't think you'll ever get the fact that Leo will  _never_  let anyone go off scot-free just because someone told him to. He's a bit of a—"

"A what?" A new voice interjected. "A perfectionist?"

Corrin nearly jumped out of his chair as Takumi and Leo sauntered. Takumi scowled once towards Corrin as he sat down in a chair next to Ryoma before looking away. Leo did the same, except he glanced nonchalantly towards Corrin before turning his attention towards Xander.

"Xander, how long is this going to take? I have fifty-four reports on a new strain of Faceless attacking our men travelling to the Bottomless Canyon to get through tonight, and I really don't want this meeting taking up more time than it should."

"Don't worry, Leo," Xander said reassuringly. "We'll talk about such matters first, before focusing on other, less important matters."

Takumi scoffed. "Yeah, right. If this meeting turns to Corrin and Azura—"

"Quiet, Takumi," Ryoma said, his voice deep with disapproval. "If you wish to leave so badly, then do so. Just know that everything in this room will stay confidential, until such circumstances occur where we declare otherwise."

Takumi rolled his eyes. "Fine."

"Hold on, do I even get a say in this?" Corrin asked. "I thought that whoever called the meeting was supposed to lead it."

"That is indeed true," Leo admitted, "but apparently, Xander and Ryoma were the ones to call us to order, so this time, they'll be in charge, not you."

"Well, what're we waiting for, then?" Corrin asked. "Let's get on with it!"

"Only," Ryoma interjected, "after the rest of our siblings arrive."

"Is Camilla coming too?"

Leo glanced towards Takumi. "Why are you asking? Is the—"

"There's no other reason!" Takumi snapped. Then, more sheepishly, he added, "It's just that some women take…an extravagant amount of time to get ready…especially Camilla."

"Why? What happened?" Corrin asked.

Takumi chuckled, once, and rubbed the back of his head sheepishly. "Let's…just say I may have wandered into the women's privy chambers once by accident, and Lady Camilla just so happened to come in after me as I was…doing my thing. Spent nearly an hour just waiting for her to get done with her stuff before I could make a break for it."

"You…didn't peek, did you?" Xander asked dangerously.

"O-of course not!" Takumi said. "N-not saying that she's not a beautiful woman in her own right, but because—"

"But because you knew if she saw you, she would either ask you to…do things, or she would decapitate you on the spot with a brush," Corrin finished.

Takumi nodded. "See! Corrin gets it! I'm not alone in this!"

No sooner had the words left his mouth that his eyes bugged out and he made a conscious effort to avoid Corrin's gaze. Everyone laughed, save for Leo, whose corners of his mouth lifted by a minuscule amount.

"Don't worry about it, Takumi," Xander said. "Camilla…well, Camilla'll be Camilla. Nothing we can do or say will change that. And as for her attending today's meeting, she's unfortunately in Nohr, helping our generals smoothly move the troops out towards the Bottomless Canyon."

"Wish we could change the location of the privy rooms, so that if I ever eat wheat again, the male's privy room would be a lot closer," Takumi grumbled.

Everyone laughed again.

"In here!" came voice, muffled by the doors.

Elise pushed the door open and almost instantly, the laughter died down as Azura stumbled inside, along with Elise.

"Next time, Elise," Azura said, "Can you perhaps  _not_  push me into the door to open it?"

She froze once she realized that the gaze of everyone in the room was directed towards her, so she primly clasped her hands in front of her and bowed her head towards them. "I'm here," she said simply.

"I see Azura was able to make it," Xander said. He gestured towards the open chair next to Corrin. "Please, take a seat."

Azura glanced toward Corrin, who gave an almost imperceptible nod. She cautiously sat down next to Corrin as his fingers surreptitiously slid into hers. She squeezed his, and was relieved when he squeezed back.

Meanwhile, Xander cleared his throat and straightened out his notes on the table. "So," he said silkily. "We have…a bit of a situation on our hands."

"That's an understatement," Takumi scoffed.

"Peace, Takumi," Ryoma chided.

"I think everyone knows this by now, but just to make sure everyone's up to speed, let's go over the hard facts again," Leo said, spreading his own notes out across the table. He picked up a piece of parchment that looked like a piece of everyday parchment and tapped it with a finger.

"As you know, according to Lilith, at any rate, only she can enter and exit this…astral plane at will. She does so by creating these portals which can be used by others to travel to and from this place. Now, the real question is: how did those invisible soldiers and Faceless manage to get pass this system to attack us?"

Everyone looked darkly at each other. Azura gave a concerned glance towards Corrin as she felt his fingers slip out of his hands as he rested his elbows on the table, his fingers steepled together in front of his face.

"I've been thinking about that too, recently," he said, "and after a couple days of thinking, I think that—"

The door burst open again, this time depositing Gunter and Sakura inside. Ryoma's eyebrows lifted at the sight of Sakura clutching on tightly to Gunter's forearm.

"Sakura? What's the meaning of this? You're late. And why are you covered in—"

Sakura flushed and bowed her heads towards in the room in apology as she tried to wipe her flour-covered fingers on her dress. "I-I'm s-so sorry!" she stuttered. "I-I was working in the k-kitchen and I didn't even notice it was t-time for the meeting u-until E-Elise was g-gone, b-but I needed to c-change and I w-went to go change but—"

"I heard rumors of a war meeting today, and when I found her running around the castle hallways, I thought I'd bring her here," Gunter said. He twisted his hand over his breast in an Nohrian salute as he bowed. "Please, forgive me for the interruption. Allow me to take my leave."

Corrin's eyes flitted towards Azura before resting on Gunter's scarred face. "Eh, actually, Gunter," he said, raising a finger, "could you stay in here with us? We're discussing how those invaders managed to breach our defenses so easily, and since you've been in Va—er, at our enemy's doorstep before, wouldn't you have more experience than the rest of us?"

Gunter stroked his chin. "Yes, well, truthfully, I was more concerned about staying alive at the time than being interested in reconnaissance, so I'm not sure if I'm the—"

"He's right, Gunter," Xander said, nodding. "If what they said about you is true, after Hans betrayed you, you spent…what, almost an entire year in the enemy's domain? I'm sure you picked up at least a few bits and pieces of information as you scavenged for survival."

Gunter's lips tightened. "As you wish." He pulled up another chair next to Leo and sat down in it, his hands resting together on the table as he looked grimly around the other members of the table. "So, what is it that you wish to know?"

Takumi leaned back and put his hands behind his head. "Well, Corrin was about to say something, until you so rudely interrupted us."

"It's alright, Takumi," Corrin said coolly. "He didn't know, and besides, I'm sure the news will spread soon enough."

"Well, get on with it, then," Leo said irritably. "I still have to peruse through your reports, you know."

Corrin rolled his eyes in exasperation and leaned forward. "Fine," he said. "My guess on how those invaders managed to invade us is because of the fact that we may have a spy among our midst."

The crinkle on Xander's forehead deepened. "What do you mean?" he asked.

"Think about it," said Corrin. "Only Lilith can create portals into the astral plane, and since I know for a fact that she would never betray us willingly, the only logical reason how they were able to invade us would be if they had a spy among us."

"That's…quite the accusation," Ryoma said. "Where's your proof? Your evidence?"

"Uh…" Corrin glanced at Azura before sheepishly dropping his gaze to the table. "I don't have any."

"And yet you claim that there is a turncoat among us," Takumi glowered.

Corrin scratched the back of his head. "Well…yes."

Takumi scoffed. "Well, unless you have something  _important_  to say, or if whatever point you're trying to get across has evidence behind it, I suggest you—"

"That's quite enough!" Ryoma said sharply. He sighed and pinched the nose of the bridge. "Evidently, feelings of animosity between you two haven't come anywhere close to being resolved, but for now, can you two just…get along?"

"I didn't do anything though!" Corrin protested as Azura squeezed his hand, silently urging him to shut up.

Thankfully, Corrin got the message and sunk back into his chair, crossing his arms as he pursed his lips. Xander sighed.

"Well, unless there's no evidence of—"

"Pardon the interruption, Lord Xander, but I believe Lord Corrin has a point here," Gunter interrupted.

The mere fact that Gunter had interrupted the Nohrian crown prince's own thoughts mid-sentence caused everyone to look at the aged knight in shock. Gunter ignored the stares thrown his way and instead cleared his throat.

"Everything Lord Corrin said about this turncoat may be true. Unless there's evidence  _disproving_  his theory, we have to assume for now that what he says is true, and as such, we should conduct an investigation into everyone possibly responsible as soon as possible."

Gunter stroked his chin thoughtfully as he gazed clear and hard into the table. "Now, it's only reasonable that since Lilith is the only one capable of freely travelling to the real world and back, it only makes sense to think of her as a traitor."

"For now," he added begrudgingly after Corrin glared at him. The young prince was loath to believe that any of his allies, especially his friends, would willingly betray him, and Lilith would be at the very top of Corrin's said list of "friends." Truth be told, the old knight was slowly becoming tired of the young prince's idealistic beliefs, though he admired the fervor that drove them.

Leo leaned back in his chair as he stroked his chin. "Well, if you have any evidence, let's hear it."

"Well first off," Gunter started, "Lilith is part dragon, correct?" Everyone around the table nodded. "Well, if I have the permission of Lord Corrin and Lady Azura to reveal part of their secrets, I could go further into detail." He glanced pointedly towards the two.

Corrin shrugged and turned towards Azura. "You were always our resident secret keeper," he said. Azura pursed her lips and sighed.

"Fine," she said begrudgingly. "On my behalf as a Princess of the…on my authority, I give you permission to talk about whatever you need to get your point across."

"Thank you, milady," Gunter said, twisting his hand over his chest again in that Nohrian salute.

"Now, as I was saying, Lilith is a dragon, and our hidden enemy…is also a dragon."

"You're raving," Takumi said under his breath.

"Let's hear him out first before we call him a lunatic," Ryoma said sternly, crossing his arms. "I want to hear this."

"The enemy that Lord Corrin and Lady Azura has been striving so hard to unite Nohr and Hoshido together against is a dragon, a dragon whose only wish is to see the world destroyed," Gunter continued. "This dragon will stop at nothing to see his goal fulfilled, and that is the 'greater threat' Lord Corrin spoke of whenever you met each other on the battlefield."

"Makes sense," Leo said. "Dragons are violent and bloodthirsty creatures. They're driven by one thing and one thing only: to rule and subjugate mankind…or see everything around them burnt to ash."

Corrin looked sickened.

Leo continued his speech, oblivious to the gray overtaking his stepbrother's face. "There's been history of it, actually. Though most of the texts have been lost or destroyed over the centuries, I remember there was one book in the Northern Fortress' library that detailed about how thousands of years before the formation of Nohr and Hoshido, the land was populated by both dragons and humans. Both parties kept mostly to themselves, until one day, the First Dragons suddenly decided to wage war on each to determine who should take control of the world. If my memory serves me right, one of these First Dragons was none other than—"

"—the Rainbow Sage," Azura finished. When Xander and Leo looked at her in surprised, she said, "Corrin and I met him, in Notre Sagesse."

"What were you doing there?" Xander asked. "I thought that you had to be worthy—"

"We were deemed worthy," Corrin said simply. "There was a whole 'trial' thing, wasn't there?"

Xander's lips tightened as he stroked his chin. "Well, yes…I do remember losing a good number of men to that old man…"

"That 'old man,' Azura continued, "was the Rainbow Sage, the First Dragon responsible for creating Yato, Raijinto, Siegfried, Fujin Yumi, and Brynhildr so that—"

"—if you are done yet," Leo said sharply, "I believe you may have interrupted me."

Azura pursed her lips and clasped her hands together on her legs as she awkwardly looked down at the table. Corrin soothingly wrapped one of his legs around hers.

"Anyways," Leo said, brushing imaginary dust off his lapels, "yes, the Rainbow Sage was responsible for creating all five of those divine weapons. But why did he create them? So he could fend off the rest of his brethren, using humans as cheap labor and cannon fodder!"

"He probably had a reason for doing so…" Corrin muttered.

"Evidently, history told us that even when the dragons were busy debating among themselves over who should govern the world, they still managed to drag humans into the whole thing only to use them as common footsoldiers!" Leo finished. "Evidence of their willingness to use humans as pawns are still prevalent today! Why do you think members of the Hoshidan and Nohrian family are able to use dragon veins?"

"Because when a dragon and a human love each other very much…" Takumi muttered.

"Because a dragon decided to create a blood bond with their chosen humans to grant them incredible power! Hell, if you really think about it, it's because dragons are bloodthirsty and self-indulgent creatures that Nohr and Hoshido are constantly at each other's throats. It's—"

Gunter cleared his throat. "With all due respect, Lord Leo, and despite my love for all things history, I think you made your point clear enough. History has shown us that dragons cannot be trusted since they are violent and bloodthirsty question. Which begs the question: who, exactly, is in charge of regulating travels between the real world and the astral plane?"

The silence that followed was enough to crush a man. Corrin and Azura looked at each other, both knowing what he was implying. Ryoma's brow furrowed as he stared into the crevices of his crossed arms. Leo looked like he was about to launch into another rant about history while Takumi actually sat up and looked around, alert. Meanwhile, Xander's brow furrowed even further as he looked across the table at Corrin.

"Corrin…do you understand what he's—"

"Yes," came Corrin's instant reply. "And in my opinion, its wrong."

"How is it wrong," Leo asked. "We have  _history_  on our side! History is never wrong—"

"Yes it is," Corrin said. "I read Nohrian books that depicted Hoshidans as lazy, selfish people because of their unwillingness to provide aid. I've also read Hoshidan scrolls that depicted Nohrians as savage, mindless brutes hellbent on conquering everything. Both were written by credible authors, yet is either account really true?"

Leo faltered. "Ye—but, that's not—"

Corrin stood up and looked around the table, making eye contact with each person. "History, despite having a reputation for never being wrong, has a history—er—reputation for being distorted so that what is right becomes wrong, and what is wrong becomes right. Point is, yes, dragons may be bloodthirsty creatures, but remember this: all those books? They were all written by humans!  _Humans_. How do you know there's no bias in the thing? For all we know, the First Dragons could've been waging war on each other because one of them wanted to oppress humans while the rest didn't."

"Yes, but—"

"And besides, Lilith has lived with my for nearly my whole life! Would a bloodthirsty mindless beast become her six-year-old friend's stable hand and part-time retainer?"

"That's not the—"

"She's one of the kindest, sweetest people I know, and even when she did nothing wrong, you guys have the  _audacity_  to try and accuse her of a crime she didn't commit?"

"Calm down, Corrin," Xander said, placatingly raising his hand. "We're not accusing Lilith, we're just letting everyone know about the…unfortunate history and behaviors of dragons."

"Oh really?" Corrin asked. "Well, if dragons are so 'bloodthirsty' and 'mindless,' then how come I'm not like the rest of them?"

The silence that followed was even greater than the last. Even Leo was shocked into silence by Corrin's outburst. Azura rose up and rested a hand on his arm as she pulled him down to his seat. Corrin's gaze dropped to the table, the edges of his vision suddenly becoming blurry.

"I-I'm sorry," he said, his voice threatening to crack. "I d-didn't mean to—"

"It's alright," Takumi said, his voice gentle for once. "I…I guess we sort of forgot you being that whole 'half-dragon- thing. I guess it was pretty hard for you to hear that stuff, huh?"

Leo nodded in agreement. "I…agree. I admit, I never would've said such statements if I remembered that you were also one of these dragons in-question."

"What is that supposed to mean?" Azura asked, her eyes narrowed. "Are you saying that if Corrin  _hadn't_  been here, you would've said it anyways?"

Leo flushed. "We—ah, you see—er, no! I…I just got caught up in the moment, that's all. I said things I never should've said, and I'm…I'm sorry, Corrin."

Azura nodded in satisfaction as Corrin nodded mutely, his eyes focused on the table as he chewed absentmindedly on his knuckles. Xander rose. "Well, I suppose this matter has been dealt with, albeit in a…rather unfortunate way. It's true. Corrin, despite being part-dragon, has never shown signs of violence or bloodthirstiness except when he's needed to, and even then, its only when its justified. As for Lilith…well…even though I never talked much to her myself, she does seem like a very sweet and kindhearted girl, which makes me doubt that she's somehow the one to betray her friend and lord."

Ryoma nodded in agreement. "I concur. Lilith…has been a faithful and loyal asset to our efforts so far, and she's responsible for saving Corrin's life, when Hans betrayed him. I vouch for Lilith."

"All those who find Lilith guilty, raise your hands," Leo said.

Xander, Ryoma's, Takumi's, Leo's and Sakura's hands remained flat on the table, along with Corrin and Azura, obviously. Gunter, however, put his hand in the air. Everyone stared at him in shock.

"Gunter…" Corrin said. "How? You knew her just as long as I have!"

"I'm sorry milord," Gunter said. "Trust me, I'm just as fond as her as you, but my duties as a retainer demand that I suspect everyone, even your closest friends, as being potential threats to you. I personally don't find her guilty, but it's my duty to say so."

Corrin sighed. "Very well then. I guess that makes sense in hindsight." Gunter nodded, though his lips tightened even further.

Leo groaned as he rolled his head around, his neck stiff. "Well then, I guess that's meeting adjourned?"

"Not yet," Xander said. "Ryoma and I…have something to say, to our most recent couple."

Corrin looked around the room. "Who? Us?"

Ryoma nodded. "Precisely."

Leo groaned again and sunk back into his chair. "Damn, I forgot about this."

Azura blinked. "What's going on? What do you need to talk to us about?"

Xander and Ryoma both looked nervously at each other. "Well…the other matter we need to discuss today in this war meeting—actually, this isn't so much as a 'war meeting' as it is laying down ground rules between the two of you," Xander said.

Corrin frowned. "What…do you mean?" he asked cautiously.

To his side, Azura's hand tightened, her pulse starting to race. Were they about to tell them that they couldn't be together? What would they do if they said that?

Leo rolled his eyes in exasperation as he leaned his hands on the table. "This is taking to long." He pointed to Corrin. "You are a man, and you—" he pointed at Azura, "—are a woman. Do you see why we have to lay down some 'ground rules?'"

"I'm…not sure what you're saying here," Corrin said. "What types of rules are you guys going to talk about?"

"Just a few," Xander said. "Namely, leaving the door open whenever you two are together are in a room, not slacking off or abandoning your duties as a member of this castle to…loiter with each other, and most  _definitely_  not sharing a bed with each other until, you know…you know what I'm talking about."

Azura flushed, light red dusting her cheeks as Corrin leaned forward, mimicking Leo. "Hold up!" he protested. "I thought in terms of power, we're all equal!"

"The amount of power that each of us holds is not relevant in this discussion," Ryoma said. "This isn't a matter of us exercising our authority or power over each other, but rather this…is a matter where if you break certain rules, you'll end up doing more harm than good."

"I'm practically a grown man!" Corrin continued to protest. "You can't tell me what I can or can't do with Azura!"

"Oh really?" Leo asked smarmily. "Well, if you're a 'grown man,' as you put it, tell us: what'll happen when you two  _do the deed_  and Azura ends up pregnant? In the middle of a war?"

The red on Azura's cheeks transformed into a shade of scarlet capable of matching Ryoma's armor as she looked away from the other occupants of the table, her eyes dancing over everything except for Corrin, for once. Corrin looked even more flummoxed than before.

"Wait, what deed? What are you talking about?"

Everyone's eyes, save Azura's, widened in shock. Even Gunter's jaw dropped, though he regained his composure quicker than the rest of the room, save for, of course, Azura.

"You…you don't know?" Leo asked, his voice sounding strangely hollow yet amused.

"Know what?" Corrin demanded. "What 'deed' are you people referencing to here?"

Xander turned towards Gunter. "You…you never told him about this?"

Gunter, in an uncharacteristic moment of embarrassment, rubbed the back of his neck, pursing his lips. His cheeks became a light shade of red. "Well, in fairness milord, we were more concerned about training him to be a proper Nohrian prince at the time. We weren't…necessarily focused on that part of his life at the time."

"Wait, hold a minute here. Time out." Takumi said, making a  _T_  shape with his hands. "What are you guys going on about here?"

Leo glanced nervously at Corrin, who was still watching them with piqued interest as he leaned over to whisper in Takumi's ear, "You know,  _the talk?_ "

Takumi's eyes widened. "W-wait,  _that_ talk?" Leo nodded.

Ryoma pinched the bridge of his nose. "Alright," he said, after a moment's deliberation. "We might as well do this now. All the women. Out."

"Hey!" Elise protested. "I wanna hear this too, y'know!"

"Out of the question," Xander snapped. "Not until you're older.  _Much_  older."

Elise pouted as Sakura gently helped her up to her feet. "Come on," she said quietly. "If you want, I c-can you a summary l-later."

Ryoma frowned. "W-wait, you know too, Sakura?"

Sakura flushed. "W-well, p-part of it!" she said meekly. "I-I'm sorry, it's just that I was feeling r-really curios o-one day, and Y-Yukimara s-said t-that since I had j-just come of age, I d-deserved to know…my r-role in it!"

Ryoma sighed as he gestured towards the door. "Doesn't matter," he said tiredly. "You still need to get out."

Sakura clasped her hands in front of her and bowed, before quickly leaving the room. Azura silently rose, still not looking Corrin in the eye even as he reached up to grasp her forearm. "You too?" he asked. "I thought you'd still—"

"This is not my place," she said, still refusing to look him in the eye. "It's tradition that…that only men hear what your brothers are about to tell you."

Corrin frowned. "Are you angry at me? I'm sorry if you're—"

"Oh no!" she said, covering his hand with her own. "I'm not angry at you at all! It's…it's just that what they're about to tell you is going to be…awkward. At best."

"And at worst?"

Azura pursed her lips. "You'll see," she said cryptically. And then she was gone, her long white dress wisping out the door as Elise quietly followed, pausing only to stick her tongue out playfully towards Corrin.

The instant all of the women were out of the meeting chamber, Leo crossed over to it and slid the latch lock into place. "There. That way, those women won't be able to sneak back in, and that way, Corrin won't be able to run."

"I never run though!" Corrin protested. "Well, I mean, I do, when I have to, but I never run from a battle if I could help it!"

"What do you call that day when Hoshido and Nohr met on the plains?" Takumi asked caustically. "When you didn't choose a side and disappeared into gods know where?"

"That's different!" Corrin protested. "And you know it!"

"Peace, everybody," Ryoma said sagely. He looked at Xander. "Do you want to be the one to tell him?"

"Why me?" Xander asked. "You're his birth family!"

"But you're also the ones who've known him longer," Takumi pointed out. "Isn't it usually the father's role to tell their children these sorts of things?"

"What sorts of things?" Corrin asked.

"Yes, but I think all of the members of the Nohrian royal children can agree that our father was…not an ideal one," Leo said.

"Well, if Camilla's the one that acts the most motherly towards Corrin," Takumi mused, "Then who's the father?"

"W-wait, what father? What things? What's going on?"

Xander sighed as he pinched the bridge of his nose. He breathed sharply through his nose before answering.

"Fine," he said sullenly. "Let it never be said that the crown prince of Nohr ran away from a challenge. Even one as…unique…as this."

"Hey!" Corrin said, raising his voice. Everyone started and turned towards him. "Why aren't you listening to me? he asked. "What 'thing' are you talking about? Why did Sakura and Azura and Elise have to leave? And what is this 'deed' you guys keeping mentioning?"

Xander gave one last glance towards Ryoma before steepling his fingers in front of his face. "Have…have you ever felt… _lust_ , before, Corrin?" he asked.

Corrin frowned. "No, I don't think so. Not really. Not unless you count those descriptions of lust in those old romance novels I read in the Northern Fortress accurate."

"What did they describe it as?" Xander pressed.

"Well, they said it had to do with a lot of flushing, wanting to give the other person gifts, kissing their hand as a sign of courtesy, and presenting them with a bouquet of flowers when offering them a dance."

Leo sighed. "Damn," he cursed. "Knew I should've thrown those old books out when I had the chance."

"You…never read…the  _other_  kind of romance novels?" Xander asked.

Corrin shrugged. "No, not really," he affirmed. The titles never really appealed to me. It's really hard to fit a book starting with the number 'fifty' alphabetically with the rest of the other books. Why? Is the way how I feel about it somehow important in my relationship with Azura?"

Leo sighed. "You know what, Corrin?"

"What?"

"You can hand those reports to me tomorrow night. This is going to be…a little difficult."

"Why?"

Xander coughed into his hand. "Well, you see…"

* * *

_~One hour later~_

Azura looked up as the door to the meeting chamber open. Leo, Xander, and Takumi all walked out, both looking rather red-faced and in a hurry to be somewhere else. Ryoma paused by where she was sitting and looked down at her.

"Leave the door open if you two are ever in a room alone together. Don't spend nights together. Don't skip out on your duties. Don't try to distract him with your…well, you know. And above all else,  _absolutely no sex_. Not until you two are married. Understand?"

Azura swallowed, forgetting how intimidating Ryoma could be when he wanted to. She nodded. "Crystal."

"Good." Ryoma nodded and jabbed a thumb back into the room. "He's waiting. Now remember—"

"Leave the door open if we're ever in a room together and there's nobody around," she repeated.

Ryoma nodded again. "Good," he repeated, before following Xander down the corridor.

Azura swallowed nervously as she got to her feet, her arms a bit sore from wrapping them around her legs as she waited for them to finish. She stood up and cautiously walked into the room, where Corrin was still seated at the table. He was staring rather intensely at the table itself as he absentmindedly ran a hand through his hair.

"Hello," she said simply.

"Hey," he responded, his voice rather shell-shocked.

She sat down next to him and gently rested her hand on top of his shoulder. "So?" she asked.

"So what?"

"How do you feel?"

Corrin looked up at her, his free hand reaching up to taker her hand. "Did you know?" he asked.

Azura frowned. "Know what?"

"Everything they just told me. About how…women get pregnant, and the changes that…well, you know what I'm talking about."

Azura sighed and took a moment to compose herself before answering. "Partly," she said. "I knew…my role in the relationship, and I was made aware of the changes my body went through by Mikoto, but as for your side of things? No. I don't know much about it."

Corrin breathed a sigh of relief. "Thank the gods then," he said.

Azura squeezed his hand. "How do you feel?"

Corrin chuckled. "Truth be told? I sort of want to erase the last hour from my memories. That…was mortifying."

Azura laughed as well. "I don't think I've ever seen you so flustered before," she said playfully.

"I'm not joking!" Corrin looked up to see the smile plastered across her face. "You know how embarrassing it was to have your  _brother_  tell you about hormones and—"

"That's enough," she chided, placing a finger over his lips. "I don't want to lose my childhood too."

Corrin pouted. "So who told you your side of the story?"

Azura tapped her cheek. "It was actually Hinoka who gave me 'the talk.'"

Corrin's eyebrows almost jumped off his face. " _Hinoka?_ " he repeated. "But isn't she, like, only a couple years older than you?"

"She's only a  _year_  younger than me," Azura corrected. "She's twenty-four, and I'm about to turn twenty-three. And in either case, if my memory serves me right, she…was an early bloomer."

"Wait, about to?'" Corrin asked. "But isn't your birthday on the third?"

Azura nodded. "Yes, I was born on March third, according to the Gregorian calendar, remember?"

Suddenly flustered again, Corrin jumped to his feet, accidentally clocking Azura on the nose with the back of his hand.

"Ow!" she complained. "What was that for?"

"Sorry!" he apologized. "I just remembered that I needed to do something!"

"Do what?"

"Ah—uh…" Corrin frantically patted his waist for something. "You'll see!" he said hastily. "I'll see you tomorrow!"

"Where are you going?" she called after him as he ran out of the room.

"I need to do something!" he called back. "It has to do with your birthday!"

Azura watched his patch of white hair disappear around a corner, then, shaking her head, walked out of the meeting chamber, closing the door behind her.

"Always on the move," she muttered, though with a small smile on her lips.


	8. Chapter 8

"Xander! Xander!"

Xander turned to see Corrin running up to him, his bare feet kicking up dust as he ran. Though the stern expression on his face did not drop, the crinkle between his eyes loosened a little bit, and the corners of his lips twitched. It was always a pleasure to talk to Corrin, even back when they were younger, and especially more so now that Corrin was…now an adult. Xander inwardly cringed as he remembered the  _awful_  "talk" he and Ryoma had to give to Corrin. He swore he would never look at birds and bees the same way ever again.

Pushing such thoughts out of his mind, Xander raised his hand in greeting. "Ho, Corrin!" he called back.

Corrin grinned, raising his own hand in return. He slowed down to a walk, his long white hair flopping over his eyes as he bent over, gasping for breath. Xander frowned as he noticed the redness of his cheeks. Corrin was one of the most fit members of the army, and the mere fact that he's doubled over what appeared to short run meant that he's been running hard for a long time.

"Is…something the matter, little prince?" he asked. "You seem awfully winded today."

"I'm…fine…" Corrin gasped. "I…was…just helping…Laslow…in the mines…Turns out…pickaxes…are heavier than…legendary weapons…"

Xander cracked a rare smile at Corrin's attempt at humor. "Is that so?" he mused, rubbing his chin. "I hope you know I gave him that role because he disobeyed my orders to  _not_  flirt with any of the women in the army."

Corrin shook his head. "I…don't think you've ever…worked in the mines before…have you?"

"I can't say that I have."

Corrin glared at Xander. "Well…I guess…that's reasonable, coming…from the person responsible…for creating the duty rosters…everyday, huh?"

Xander finally broke and let a smile to spread across his face. "Nonsense," he scoffed playfully. "I simply feel that based on the number of accidents that occur in the mines everyday, it wouldn't exactly be wise to have members of the royal family working there, right?"

"But…you're comfortable with making your own retainers work…in such conditions?"

Xander frowned. "Well…when you put it like that…" A short silence passed as Xander rubbed his chin, thinking.

"Fine then," he said, after a moment. "I'll see if I can excuse Laslow from his duty today, but  _only_  if he promises to never flirt with the women in our army again."

Turning back towards Corrin, he asked, "Now was that the only thing you needed to talk to me about, or was there something else?"

"I wasn't even going to ask to lighten Laslow's punishment," Corrin protested, finally standing back up straight. "I know what he did, and personally, I think he deserves a punishment. I just didn't think you would punish him by forcing him to work in the mines, though."

"Well, what is it that you need?" Xander asked, his stern expression reasserting itself over his features. "My patience is wearing thin, and I was planning on travelling back to the Bottomless Canyon with Leo to make sure the men aren't getting too rowdy with the Hoshidans, so make it quick."

Corrin rubbed the back of his head. "Well, when you say it like that, it makes what I have to ask of you seem inappropriate."

Xander rolled his eyes. "Just spit it out," he ordered. "The sooner I can figure out what you're talking about, the sooner I can resume my business."

Corrin leaned in closer to Xander. "Azura's birthday," he said simply. "I have a favor to ask of you."

Xander took a step back, unaccustomed to people being in such close proximity to him, though his frown did lessen. "Ah yes, it's soon going to be the third of March, isn't it? That's in four days, isn't it?" he said. "How were you planning to celebrate it?"

Corrin grinned. "Well, Azura told me that she's not a big fan of huge, over the top parties, but she hinted that she wanted some a bit more…private."

"Wasn't one of the rules we set down between the two of you was that there was going to be no—"

"No, we're not going to be doing that!" Corrin said. "Well, at least, not yet."

"I'm going to ignore that last part," Xander deadpanned. "But continue."

"Well, I was thinking…besides the times they met on the battlefield and when they joined our cause, Azura never really got to know Camilla or Elise, has she?"

"Not that I know of," Xander said, rubbing her chin. "Why?"

"Well, I was thinking that Camilla, Elise, along with Sakura and possibly Hinoka take her out to a nice restaurant in Cyrkensia. Afterwards, then I can give Azura my present."

"That does sound like a good plan," Xander mused, "but unfortunately, we cannot allow you to travel to Cyrkensia for a lunch. Tensions are still running high among the people regarding the destruction of the city, and furthermore, Father has yet to issue an official pardon regarding the you two's innocence. The instant you stepped foot in Cyrkensia, you'll be apprehended and arrested almost on sight."

"Though, I'm sure, based on news of your actions, most of the guards will be willing to turn a blind eye," he added, after noticing the crestfallen expression on Corrin's face.

"So…Cyrkensia's out of the question?" Corrin asked.

Xander nodded. "I'm afraid so."

"Then…what about Izumo?"

"How is that any better?"

"Well, Izumo is recognized by both Hoshido and Nohr for being neutral, right?"

Xander nodded.

"Well, that means it's also not affiliated with either side—"

"Yes, that's…what being neutral means."

"—which means any degrees or laws passed by either Hoshido or Nohr to execute us on sight won't be in effect there," Corrin finished.

"Huh." Xander rubbed his chin again. "That is a good point…but didn't the archduke, Izana, die under mysterious circumstances while you visited?"

"Uh, well, you see…" Corrin said sheepishly. "Something about his death didn't feel right. I mean, have you ever heard of a ceremony that required its performer to sacrifice something in return?"

"Well…no, I've never heard of such a ritual," Xander replied. "But that's besides the point. Wouldn't the people despise you for causing the death of their archduke?"

"Well, my group arrived in Izumo secretly," Corrin explained, "and even if people knew who we were, there's no direct evidence linking us to the death of Izana, which means they can't prosecute us. And besides, I don't think Elise or Camilla had joined us yet at the time, which means the people will have no reason to suspect them."

"What about Azura?" Xander asked.

"What about her?" Corrin asked casually. "She rarely left the castle back in Hoshido, which meant there's not a lot of people outside of Hoshido's nobility that knows about her existence. In fact, I think the only people who knows about her existence is, of course, the members of the royal families and our enemy."

"The enemy that you two still refuse to tell us about, correct?"

Corrin nodded silently.

"You really thought this through, didn't you?" Xander asked, with a hint of begrudging respect. "I suppose arranging lunch in Izumo would work, but what do I have to do with any of this? Not saying that I don't care about Azura's birthday—I do—but I fail to see my role in this plan of yours."

"All you have to do is two things," Corrin said, raising a finger. "First off, you'll have to make sure that Azura, Camilla, Elise, Hinoka, Sakura, and I are free that day."

"Easy enough," Xander chortled.

"Second off, you have to make sure that news of this doesn't spread beyond the two of us. I want it to be a surprise for Azura, and I can't really do that if you go around telling everyone, right?"

"Don't worry, little prince," Xander chuckled. "My lips are sealed."

Corrin nodded. "Good. I'm off to tell Camilla, Hinoka, and Sakura about my plan."

"Wait, why not Elise?" Xander asked, frowning.

Corrin sighed. "Xander, you know that we both love Elise dearly, but does she really seem like the type to be able to keep a secret?"

Xander shook his head. "You really did think of everything, didn't you?"

Corrin beamed. "Well, I guess all those private lessons with Leo about strategy finally paid off, didn't they?"

Xander chuckled and slapped Corrin on the back. "Well, I'll be off," he said. "Be sure to tell Azura happy birthday from me, will you?"

"O-of course."

Xander nodded and turned away, only to pause as Corrin called out, "Actually, wait!"

Xander turned back towards Corrin. "Yes?"

Corrin shifted nervously. "You know about my old piano? The one in the Northern Fortress?"

Xander frowned. "Yes, I do. You used to play on it all the time. What of it?"

"Do…do you think it'll be possible to move—"

"Absolutely not," Xander said, not even bothering to let Corrin finish his request. "Not only would that be a waste of our efforts, as well as being pointless, Father has also made sure that anyone caught helping you would be put to death. Even his own children. I'm sorry, Corrin, but I simply can't risk sending my men and mages to transport your piano back here."

Corrin sighed. "Well, it was worth a shot," he muttered. "When will you back?"

Xander tapped his foot impatiently. "I'm expecting to return by tomorrow afternoon, though I would be back a lot sooner if I could actually leave."

Corrin hastily apologized. "Sorry. Don't let me keep you any longer than you need to be," he said.

Xander nodded towards Corrin before finally turning around and striding away, Siegfried pulsing at his waist. Corrin watched as Lilith floated over, and in a flash of light, both dragon and prince disappeared.

He sighed as he looked towards the castle, up towards where Azura's quarters would be.

"Soon," he said to himself.


	9. Chapter 9

" _Happy birthday!"_

Azura yelped in surprise, pulling up her covers to her chin to cover herself as Camilla, Elise, Sakura, and Hinoka barged into her room. Azura blinked groggily and rubbed her eyes.

"Wait, wuzzhappening?" she muttered. "Why are you all in my room?"

"Today's your birthday, dummy!" Elise chirped, flinging herself onto the bed. Azura grunted as she felt Elise's weigh settle in on her leg.

"My…birthday?" she repeated dully.

Before anyone could respond, someone shoved what felt like a cupcake into her open hand. She stared at it, confused.

"What's…what is this?" she asked, still trying to make pull her covers up as possible to cover herself. Sure, they were all her sisters, and they were all women, but the door was still ajar and Azura had never been one to openly flaunt about in only her smallclothes.

Elise giggled as she bounced up and down in excitement. "It's a cupcake! For you!"

"For me?" Azura asked.

Camilla smiled and ruffled Azura's head. "She's just like Corrin, she is. Never wanting to get up in the mornings…you two really  _are_  perfect for each other!"

At the mention of Corrin's name, Azura's vision suddenly sharpened, and she sat up, more alert this time around. "Corrin? Did someone say Corrin's name?" she asked. "Where is he?"

Camilla laughed. "Well, I think we just figured what passes as coffee for Azura," she chortled.

Azura blinked and stared at her. "So…he's not here?" she asked. Barring the few times she ran into him as he was moving to another meeting, or the few times she ate with him in the mess hall, she had scarcely seen him since the "war" meeting with Ryoma, Xander, Leo, and Takumi a week ago. Part of her was somewhat relieved, since obviously, whatever they had told him caused to flush and turn so red that even his ears turned scarlet whenever he even glanced towards her. On the other hand…

The longer Azura went without seeing him, or holding hands with him…or even simply by him, the greater the sense of emptiness inside her grew. Of course, she knew that as leader of the Hoshidan and Nohrian armies, he rarely had free time, but it would've been nice to see him at least a couple times every day.

Azura blinked as Elise snapped her fingers in front of her nose. "Uh, world o big sister!" she chirped. "Are you home?"

Azura shook her head. "Uh, yes! Of course! So Corrin's…not going to see me today? At all?"

Elise giggled. "Well, you'll see him tonight, that's for sure. But right now, he's too busy planning your—"

Camilla clamped a hand over Elise's mouth. "That is to say," she said hastily, "our dear Corrin is bit…preoccupied today. Don't expect to see him around  _too_  much today. He's in charge of two armies, after all."

Azura frowned. "So…I won't see him at all today?" she repeated.

Hinoka tried to hide her grin behind her hand. "Oh, you will. Just not anytime soon, so don't get your hopes up."

Azura pursed her lips, her usual mask of calm settling over her features again. "Alright then," she said with finality. "Could you all please leave my room?"

Elise pouted. "Why? Aren't you going to first eat the cupcake that we baked for you?"

Azura's face slowly turned red at the awkwardness of the whole situation. "I-I need to change first," she said. "A-and besides, I don't like eating in my room. Especially things that crumble and get crumbs everywhere."

Hinoka smiled knowingly as she playfully slugged Azura in the arm, causing her to frown and rub the spot where she punched her. "Aw, that's classic Azura for you!" she said with a grin. "Always trying to stay neat and tidy, even when Mother tried to spoil us rotten. She always did hate how we always wanted to spend our birthdays alone, and she felt doubly so towards you."

The mention of the deceased queen brings forth a lump in Azura's throat, and she nods mutely.

"C-come on," Sakura said. "I-If she w-wants to change, i-it'll be better if we give her s-some privacy."

Azura gave Sakura a grateful smile as her sisters filed past the door, with Elise giving her one last hug and asking her "Promise you'll try to find us later?"

Azura rested her hand on top of Elise's head. "I'll try," she said. "But I'm afraid it all depends on whether or not I have duties to—"

"Oh, don't worry about it, dear," Camilla said. "We had a talk with Xander earlier this morning, and I made sure that you'll be free today. You'll have to try a lot harder than that if you want to escape us."

"Don't worry big sis!" Elise chirped as she saw the look of mixed shock and confusion on Azura's face. "Trust me, you're going to  _love_  what we planned for you today!"

"But…but the war," Azura muttered, mostly to herself at the point as Elise flaunted away from her, shutting the door to her room in the process. Azura looked down at the cupcake she was still holding in her eyes before sighing and setting it to the side, carefully making sure no crumbs got anywhere.

It wasn't that she  _didn't_  want to spend her birthday with her sisters. She did, she honestly did, but how could they even think to take a day off to pamper her when they were in the middle of a war?

Sure, reports of fighting between Nohr and Hoshido had gone down ever since Ryoma and Xander announced their truce together, but they still needed to wait for soldiers to arrive at the bottomless canyon, and every day that passed meant another day for Anankos to strengthen his forces. The sooner their forces arrived at the Bottomless Canyon, the sooner they could attack, but when your army consisted of soldiers from two different nations, with one vehemently hating the other, it was usually expected of people in a position of hers to do all she could to bridge the gap between them.

Azura flinched as a knock sounded on her door. "Hey, Azura! Are you done yet?" chirped Elise's voice. "We've been waiting for—ow!" A light  _smack_  sounded. "What was that for?"

"Be  _patient_ ," Camilla scolded. "I'm sorry for hitting you, but you have to understand, it usually takes women, especially one as endowed as Azura, some time to get ready and—"

"I'm almost done!" Azura called, eager to interrupt Camilla's train of thoughts. She stared down at herself, still lying in bed in her smallclothes. Her hands went up to her chest.

"I'm not even all that endowed though…" she muttered to herself, frowning.

She slowly got up off her bed and walked over to the front of her mirror, her frown deepening at the sight of the azure typhoon resting on her head. She closed her eyes and sighed as she grabbed her brush in preparation for her daily routine.

A few minutes later, the door to Azura's room opened. Elise, who had been sitting back against the wall, was instantly on her feet and was all but bounding up and down in excitement as Azura stepped outside.

Her excitement soon died, however she her eyes ran up and down Azura wearing her usual attire: a white gown with long, frilled gloves pulled up to her biceps, with a sliver of cloth stripped away to reveal part of her hip and stomach, covering most of her right leg while leaving her left leg bare save for a golden anklet around her ankle.

Elise pouted. "Aw, you're wearing that same dress again!"

Azura looked down at herself. "This again?" she asked. "I told you, I'm fine with what I wear. It's comfortable, and it doesn't get in the way whenever I sing or dance."

"Yeah, but you  _always_  wear it!" Elise whined. "Don't you need to wash it?"

Azura looked back, glancing out the corner of her eye towards her wardrobe, where at least fifteen more slivers of white were just barely visible.

Camilla tutted. "Uh-uh!" she said, mistaking Azura's glance backwards as a sign of wanting to back out. "You're going to spend some  _quality_   _time_  with your sisters today. We never had you to ourselves for a whole day before, so we're going to make sure you won't forget it!"

Azura took a step back unconsciously, wary of the much larger woman looming in front of her. "W-well, I know you already t-told Xander about my birthday, but we're still in the middle of a war!" she protested. "We can't afford to—"

"Oh, you worry too much!" Hinoka scoffed, throwing her arm around Azura's shoulder. "Trust us, you may be one of the most important figures in our armies, but doesn't necessarily mean that you're the omnipotent being with endless knowledge you want Corrin to think you are. You're a songstress, not a military leader like Ryoma or Lord Xander."

"B-but—"

"Relax!" Hinoka pressed. "I know you want to finish this business of yours as soon as possible, but no matter how much you try to help out by doing random chores around the castle, it's not going to make those soldiers get to the Bottomless Canyon any faster. It's alright if you take a day of, and today's that day!  _Relax!_ "

Azura sighed. "Nothing I say is going to change your mind, is it?"

Hinoka shook her head. "Nope!"

Azura sighed again, mentally surrendering herself to her fate. "Well, I suppose it's not the first time my future has been altered without my consent."

Hinoka and Camilla both laughed awkwardly, glancing at each other. "Classic Azura, right?" Hinoka said, forcing out a smile.

"D-don't s-say such things!" Sakura protested. "W-we didn't mean to—"

"Alright, I admit that may have been a little bit harsher than I anticipated," Azura apologized. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to accuse you of anything. I know none of you had any part in my childhood traumas."

"That's the spirit!" Hinoka said, ruffling her hair, and in the process, her habit. "Turn that frown upside-down! We're going shopping!"

Azura tried to push herself out of the arms of Hinoka and Camilla. "Stop that!" she protested, fixing her head covering. "Can you perhaps  _not_  mess up my hair? Do you know how long it takes to straighten this out?"

Elise gasped, comprehension dawning on her face. "So  _that's_  why you always take so long in the mornings!" she said, giggling. "It's because of your hair!"

Azura rearranged her habit again, making sure it was in its proper place. "Well, that's part of the reason."

"Ooh, what's the other part?" Elise asked.

"Come now, Elise," Camilla chided. "It's rude to ask a lady what she does in the bedroom." She gave a knowing wink towards Azura.

Azura's eyebrows furrowed. "First off, Ryoma and Xander laid down some  _very_  specific rules about what Corrin and I can and cannot do. Secondly, don't ever wink at me again," she said towards Camilla. "I don't like it, and I still can't understand how you always act this…this—"

"Loving?" Camilla offered. "Motherly? Sisterly?"

Azura stared at Camilla for a second before shaking her mind. "Never mind," she said. Suddenly, what Hinoka just said clicked in her head.

"W-wait, shopping?!" Azura stuttered, her usual mask of calm shattering. "But what about breakfast? We haven't eaten yet! Shouldn't we first—"

"Oh, don't worry, dear," Camilla cooed. "We've arranged quite the  _treat_  for you this morning. I made sure that you'll enjoy it."

"But where are going?" Elise asked. "You told me and Sakura that we're going somewhere fancy today, but you didn't actually tell us where we were going."

"It's 'Sakura and  _I_ ,'" Camilla corrected, "And trust me, it'll be an even better surprise if we kept you two in the dark."

"B-but why?" Sakura asked meekly. "I thought our plan was—"

"And that's enough of that!" Hinoka chirped, dragging Azura out by the arm. "I'm taking Azura out of here first. Make sure you talk to Lilith if you want to leave. I heard she's hanging out by the mines today."

Azura frowned. If they needed to talk to Lilith in order to "leave," then where were they going? The answer clicked almost immediately.

"W-wait, you're taking me  _outside_  the astral plane?" she asked.

Hinoka rolled her eyes. "Well, obviously!" she said. "I'm not trying to insult Flora's or the rest of today's cooks cooking, but what they can make is  _nothing_  compared to the place we're taking you."

"B-but Corrin and I are all but fugitives, according to Nohrian and Hoshidan law!" she protested. "Even if you're royalty, they'll be sure to try and apprehend me on—"

"Oh, don't worry about it!" Hinoka scoffed. "Remember when Ryoma and Xander made their little truce together? Well, they also created an official degree granting you and Corrin amnesty from all past actions. As far as the people of Hoshido are concerned, you're at least Hoshidan again, if not royalty! And besides, just in case you  _weren't_  accepted by the general populace—well, any less than you were before—Camilla and Sakura made sure to pick out a  _nice_  spot for you in a…more neutral place."

"Where are you taking me?" Azura asked again.

Hinoka giggled. "That's the surprise!"

Azura rolled her eyes in exasperation, though she continued to allow Hinoka to drag her. Soon enough, however, Azura was walking besides Hinoka.

Sure, they were in the middle of a war, but what Hinoka and Camilla said was true. No matter how much she tried to help Corrin, no matter how many castle duties she signed up for that day, none of it would help the armies travel to the Bottomless Canyon any faster.

 _Maybe I am due for a break today,_  Azura thought to herself.  _And besides, they said I was supposed to meet Corrin today, so maybe today won't be that bad after all._

* * *

 

Azura groaned as she leaned back, her hands resting on her stomach. "Oof. I'm stuffed," she groaned.

Elise giggled. "Really? After only one serving? There's still dessert, you know!"

Azura groaned again. "I usually skip dessert," she said. "Most of them can be really fattening, and since, you know, I'm a dancer, I can't really afford to put on a few pounds without it really showing"

Hinoka leaned over and lightly slugged Azura. "Oh, c'mon!" she slurred. "Every woman's gotta have a cheat day  _some_  day!"

Azura's eyes flashed down towards the empty cup of sake besides Hinoka's plate. "…Right," she said, after a moment. "I'll take that…into consideration. Just…try not to get  _too_  drunk."

True to Hinoka's words, they somehow managed to book a private seat in one of Izumo's most acclaimed restaurants, one that catered to both Nohrian and Hoshidan style of foods. Hinoka turned out to be an avid fan of alcohol, and immediately ordered some sake, while Sakura and Elise decided to order the largest, sweetest dish off the menu and split it between them. Camilla settled for a professionally grilled steak with parsnips, and though Azura would never admit, she did feel a trail of saliva drool from her mouth the moment her eyes set upon a fruit salad draped in mandarins with a side of chocolate-covered strawberries.

So, of course, she ordered that exact dish, only to find out that appearances could be deceiving. The plate itself was easily the size of her forearm, and was easily twice as thick while the salad was less of a salad and more of a method for people to say they're eating healthy while in reality they were bust eating probably the most fattening item on the entire menu. As a result, Azura didn't touch the salad  _too_  much, though she did take a few bites off here and there. Whatever she did not finish, Sakura ate, which surprised everyone save for Hinoka.

"Eh, what of it?" she said when they all turned to look at her. "Sakura always had a thing for sweet foods, so I'm not really all that surprised that Sakura would be the one to eat all of the sugary stuff right off the menu."

As for the strawberries—well—they were  _divine._

Azura had never felt so satisfied after a meal, barring, of course, the faint memory of a feast in her youth, though the memory itself was muddled by time.

Camilla leaned over and casually asked a passing waiter for their check, before turning towards Azura and asking, "So, what do you think of today now?"

Azura stifled a burp with a closed hand before responding, "I'm sorry I ever doubted you in the first place."

Everyone laughed, save for Sakura and Elise, who took an even greater interest in what appeared to be the desserts menu. Camilla wiped an imaginary tear from her eye.

"Oh, I forgot how sweet you were back when we were younger," she said. "Though, let's try to keep our childhood traumas out of this."

Azura frowned. "You don't have to do that," she said.

Camilla frowned. "Do what?"

"Pretend that everything I say is funny and worth listening to," Azura responded. "Because it's usually not."

Camilla shook her head in exasperated fondness. "Oh, just like Corrin, you are," she said coyly. "Always trying to give credit to someone else. You two are perfect for each other!"

"Plus, I think I'm like, halfway drunk!" Hinoka said cheerfully. "So you know, cover your bottom, and don't expose your head!"

Azura stifled a smile behind her hand. "I…I don't think you're using that idiom correctly."

"Whatever!" Hinoka said, taking another sip of sake. "Overturned water doesn't return to the tray!"

Camilla leaned in closer to Azura. "What…what do those sayings mean?" she whispered.

Azura whispered back, "Well, the first one was actually supposed to be 'Cover your head, but don't expose you bottom,' and it basically means being careful not to expose your weak point while protecting yourself."

"And the second one?"

"It's just the Hoshidan version of 'No use crying over spilled milk.'"

"Ah." Camilla nodded and leaned back. "Interesting."

"Why do you ask?" Azura asked. "Is it—"

"Oh no, it's nothing like what you're think of!" Camilla chuckled, taking a sip of water.

"But I wasn't—"

"One day, this war is going to end, and when that day comes, that'll also be the day that I'll finally lay down my axe, say farewell to my wyvern, and live a life spreading peace and happiness, instead of fear and brutality," Camilla said. "Did you know they called me 'The Butcher of Nohr?'"

Azura shook her head. "Can't say that I have."

Camilla tugged guiltily at her lip. "I was…around thirteen to fourteen years old. There was village responsible for a monthly shipment of ore from a nearby quarry, but a band of rebels decided to, you know,  _rebel_ , and took over the whole operations. King Garon put me in charge of hunting down and executing every one of those dreadful militants, and I did. But at a cost."

Azura pursed her lips. "Was the cost the innocent lives you took?" she asked.

Camilla nodded gravely. "The militants hid their hideout well, and none of the villagers knew where the hideout was. That's when I stopped calling Garon 'father.'"

"What happened?" Azura asked, though she knew what happened.

"The militants put out the message that they were on the side of the people, that everything they did was to better their villages lives. So Garon tested their resolve. He order me to line up every last man, woman, and child, and to summarily behead them, one-by-one, until the militants surrendered."

Azura gasped, her hands covering her mouth. Suddenly, the taste of strawberries in her mouth became bitter. "That's terrible!"

Camilla nodded sadly. "There were nearly three hundred souls in that village, with an additional seventy or so militants. By the time I was done, and the militants decided to surrender, there were less than fifty."

Beside them, Sakura and Elise suddenly started talking in hushed tones, while Hinoka glanced at Azura and Camilla, the cloudiness in her eyes vanishing. Azura watched as Camilla looked at her hands.

"I killed…so many that day. It was only until I collapsed and passed out with exhaustion that Garon decided to take over. I never heard tale from that village again. At the time, I tried to justify my actions, saying to myself that it was to make sure Corrin could have a safe place growing up, and that my 'father' willed it at the time. As for the public, well…" Camilla chuckled darkly. "They…understood better, then my mother did. Most of them knew what the stakes were for me at the time. It was common knowledge that children of the court grew in…quite dreadful conditions, and oftentimes, even the poorest of farmers would have children who grew in better conditions than we did.."

Camilla paused to take another sip of water. "As I grew older, and as Garon sent me further and further out into Nohr to put down peasant revolts and whatnot, people slowly started calling me 'The Butcher of Nohr.' Even as a butcher despises having to put down his prized hog, I despised having to put down my people."

Azura pursed her lips and looked at her hands, which were slightly shaking. Camilla sighed, shaking her head, before turning towards Hinoka. "Mind if you share that cup with me? I need a drink."

Hinoka grunted, looking between her cup and Camilla for a second before shrugging and passing to her.

"Perhaps you shouldn't!" Azura exclaimed, interrupting the motion. She tipped her head towards Sakura and Elise, who were carefully watching the three of them.

Camilla sighed and retracted her hand. "Please, forgive me," she said towards Azura, Sakura, and Elise. "That was a moment of weakness, and one you should've never seen."

Azura breathed a sigh of relief as Hinoka polished off the rest of her cup, gulping. Gasping, she set the cup back on the table. "Well, that was a fun and delightful conversation!" she slurred. She pointed towards Azura. "How about  _you_  tell us what you want to do after this war is over."

"L-leave it to Big S-sister to change a topic like t-that," Sakura whispered to Elise, who giggled, though it was tempered by sadness.

Azura frowned. "I'm…not sure, really."

"Oh,  _come on!_ " Hinoka slurred, leaning forward to rest a hand on Azura's shoulder. "Surely, there's  _something_  you want to do. You wanna get married?"

"Marriage…has never been something I thought I would live long enough to see."

"You wanna see the world?"

"I'm not a fan of travelling excessive distances, so no."

"You wanna marry Corrin?"

"You already asked me that question, and wait, wait—what?"

Hinoka grinned as Camilla hid a smirk behind the check the waiter just deposited.

"You heard me. Do you wanna marry Corrin?" she repeated.

Azura felt herself blush as everything in the room suddenly became twenty times hotter. "You're drunk," she said finally. "Come on. I'll pay the bill, and then we can all go home so you can rest up."

"Oh, nonsense!" Camilla scoffed. "You're the birthday girl today! I'll pay for it."

She scooped out a small leather bag out of—

"Did…did you just pull that out of your bra…?"

Camilla winked a smarmy wink towards Azura. "Trust me, these aren't a blessing as they are a curse. Back pains, lustful men that can't keep their hands to themselves…the list goes on and on. But one thing they  _are_  useful for is hiding things. Guards usually never notice anything between them, since they're always distracted by—"

"Alright, alright!" Azura yelped. "I get the point!"

"Lucky you," Hinoka grumbled. "I've been waiting since I was twelve, and now I'm forty-two!"

"T-twenty-four," Sakura corrected.

"Whatever! I'm twenty-four, and they  _still_  haven't grown yet."

"Uh…we're still in public, Hinoka…" Azura said timidly.

"It's alright, Hinoka," Camilla say coyly. "Nohrian women usually are more…endowed than Hoshidan women. Why? I'm not sure, but I'm positive it has something to do with—"

"Alright, we're leaving.  _Now._ " Azura hurriedly stood up, pushed her chair in, threw a couple of gold coins onto the table, and dragged Hinoka out of the restaurant.

"Lilith!" she called.

The little dragon instantly appeared before her in a flash of light. She's never been sure on how Lilith knows whether or not someone's calling her name or if it was just Laslow flirting with a barmaid whose name happened to be Lilith, or even when she's needed, but Azura wrote  _that_  part off a long time ago.

The little dragon bowed her head respectfully. "How was your brunch, Lady Azura?"

Azura looked down at Hinoka, who was struggling to her feet. Lilith caught the meaningful glance, and what appeared to be a smile appeared on her jaws.

"I see," she said simply. "Is Princess Sakura, Princess Elise, and Lady Camilla still inside?"

"We're here," Elise said, somewhat piqued by their sudden leaving. "Though my parfait isn't."

"It'll be fine," Camilla cooed. "I'll make you one when we get back to the castle."

Elise's eyes brightened. "W-wait, really? You can do that?"

Camilla smiled. "Well, making merry with the castle cooks  _can_  be a good way to pick up a few tricks here and there."

"Awesome!" Elise jumped up and down. "I want a strawberry one then!"

"W-why strawberry?" Sakura asked. "I-I'm a big f-fan of mint."

"Because strawberries are Azura's favorite, and since she usually has good taste in food, that means they'll have to be good!"

Azura frowned at Elise's wording. "You…say that like you never had a strawberry before," she noted.

Elise's excitement paused for a brief moment. "Well, no, not really," she admitted. "But I'm I'll enjoy it, and even if I don't, I'm sure there's someone else who'll like them when I give it to them!"

"That's…very sweet, Elise," Hinoka said, struggling to remain balanced. "Just…make sure you don't give them to Azama. He's allergic."

What sounded like a chuckle came out of Lilith's mouth, though when everyone else turned towards her, her expression remained unchanged. "Ah, please forgive me for the intrusion" she apologized. "But I can only stay here so long before someone notices me. Should we be off?"

Azura nodded. "Take us to the castle."

"Of course, Lady Azura."


	10. Chapter 10

"Lord Corrin wants to see you."

"W-wait, now?"

"Did I stutter?"

Azura looked down at her strawberry cheesecake, still unfinished. Almost the instant they had traveled back to the astral plane, Azura's stomach had growled again, despite them literally just walking out of a restaurant. In fairness, though, Sakura kept taking bits and pieces of her food, which she didn't mind. Corrin also had a habit of taking bits and pieces away from her plate, but always with her permission, and he always offered a piece in return. Azura on the other hand…well, she just kept taking and taking. Azura didn't mind. Sakura always had a love for sweet food, and the "salad" that she had ordered was possibly the very definition of the word "sweet." Azura was shocked to hear that Sakura had never had any problems with her teeth.

That being said, Azura begrudgingly admitted that the food served in the castle mess hall, while tolerable, was definitely  _not_  sweet. So, because of those two reasons, she continued to allow Sakura to take food off her plate.

A decision that she soon regretted, though she didn't dare say it out loud.

"But…but I'm not finished yet!" she protested.

Selena rolled her eyes. "Not my problem," she drawled. "It's your own fault that you kept letting Princess Sakura take your food."

Azura sighed. "I guess you're right," she said, pushing her food away. "Though in fairness, you have to understand, the salad was really sugary, and you know how much—"

"I didn't come here to listen to your excuses!" Selena snapped. "Lady Camilla sent me here to tell you that Lord Corrin wanted to see you, and I did as she asked. Happy birthday, and I hope you have a wonderful rest of your day."

"B-but—"

" _Good. Day_."

Azura sighed, shaking her head as she watched the red-haired retainer walk away, her red hair swaying side-to-side. Despite her harsh words and tone, Azura knew that, ultimately, Selena was more bark than bite.

Not saying that Selena  _didn't_  have a bite—she did. Azura had watched her eviscerate undead soldiers and Faceless like she had been doing so her whole life, which wouldn't be unreasonable, Azura reasoned. For all she knew, Selena could actually be of Vallite heritage, since Azura knew it was unlikely that she was the only one to escape Anankos' murderous rampage. The memories were faint, yes, but she remembered more than just her mother and herself fleeing Valla. That, and the hair also gave Azura some clue of Selena's past. While Nohrians usually had hair that were shades of blonde, Hoshidans typically sported black, brown, or red, though there were some unusual cases, such as in the cases of Orochi's or Setsuna's locks. Vallites, on the other hand, could have hair ranging from the grayest of grays to the reddest of reds.

Azura's own hair, for instance, was azure in shade, as was her mother's, on account of them being part of royal Vallite bloodline. Selena's own hair was red, redder than even Hinoka's, which may point to her heritage as a Vallite, though Azura couldn't say for sure.

Those two points, plus the one time she had accidentally walked in on Subaki and Selena together. The tenderness in how Selena whispered to Subaki…truth be told, Azura didn't know whether or not she should feel embarrassed for interrupting them, shocked at seeing Subaki so flustered for once, or jealous that Corrin never held her so closely that way and whisper those words with the same amount of tenderness.

But then again, Corrin would always just do something so…so  _Corrin-like_ , and Azura would, every time, without fail, thank whatever gods were out there for letting her meet him. She never thought that she would actually fall in  _love_  with someone, especially with Corrin so quickly, but the simple fact that she could trust him with secrets no one else had the privilege or ability to hear made her feel  _safe_.

And in a world populated by a mad dragon, such a feeling was hard to come by.

Azura sighed again as she stood up, picking up her still-unfinished cheesecake and walked over to where Flora and Peri were busy manning the kitchen. As she walked over, she noticed that Flora seemed to be a bit stiffer than usual, and every movement precise and more calculated than usual, which said volumes for the normally cold and calm maid.

"Is something wrong, Flora?" Azura asked. "You seem a bit…stiffer than usual."

Flora glanced out the corner of her eyes towards Peri, who was humming happily as she chopped some meat. She gave an almost imperceptible nod of her head.

"Felicia told me about Peri's habit of…well, killing servants and maids who displeases her," she whispered out the side of her mouth. "According to my sister, even she barely made it out alive when she accidentally spilled some tea on her, so what chance would I have if I was to do something wrong?"

Azura glanced again at Peri. "I…I'm sure you'll do fine," she said, trying to soothe Flora. "Besides, aren't you on of Corrin's retainers? Surely, that would offer you  _some_  level of protection."

"That's the thing though!" Flora hissed. "I'm not one of his retainers."

Azura frowned. "But aren't you—"

"I'm his maid," Flora explained. "Being a maid isn't the same thing as being a retainer. A retainer is essentially a paid servant who has sworn to protect and serve their liege, even at the cost of their own lives. A maid is just a woman who cooks and picks up after their master."

"But you do so much more than that though!" Azura argued. "I've seen you fight before, and you always fight as if your life depended on it!"

Flora's lips tightened. "I fight only when I need to," she replied. "My duties don't extend to fighting alongside Lord Corrin—that's my sister's job. My duties are only to serve Lord Corrin in domestic situations to the best of my abilities."

Azura opened her mouth to argue further, but Peri suddenly slammed her knife onto the cutting board and shouted, "Are you done with those dishes yet, Flora? I need to put the meat onto them to cook them!"

"A-almost!" Flora squeaked. "I-I just need to finish drying them!"

Flora yelped and hit the floor as a knife buried itself in the wall behind her. "You said that five minutes ago!" Peri yelled, her normal childlike demeanor replaced with a professional fury. "If you can't work in the kitchen efficiently, then you don't deserve to work at all!"

"I-I'm sorry!" Flora squeaked. "P-please don't kill me!"

Flora sighed as she picked herself back up, smoothening the front of her skirt out with her hands. "I-if you're done with that, I'll take it," she said shakily.

Azura looked down at the sad pile of cake on her plate. "Er, well, I was wondering, isn't there some way of putting it in a cold environment so that it'll last longer?"

Flora pursed her lips. "Well, I suppose that's possible, but we don't really have any space in the kitchen right now. What I could do instead is take it and ask my sister to keep it cold for you until you come back to pick it up."

Azura raised an eyebrow. "Isn't…your sister on patrol duty?" she asked. "How is she supposed to keep it cold?"

Flora cracked a small, rare smile. "Well, we  _are_  both from the Ice Tribe, after all. Some say we have the ability to manipulate and use ice to our whims."

Azura mentally kicked herself.  _Of course._  "That'll be perfect, thank you," she said as she handed the plate over to Flora.

"Make sure to visit us again!" the maid said. "And also, please,  _please_  tell Lord Corrin to let me off the kitchen roster earlier this week." She gave another fearful glance toward Peri who was now savagely skinning a chicken. "I don't know how much longer I can last here!"

"I'll keep it in mind," Azura said before turning and walking out the mess hall.

She squinted and raised her hand to cover her eyes as she peered into the setting sun. Despite Lilith's offer to make the astral plane be light at all times, Corrin had refused, instead asking her to keep a normal day and night cycle, since it would be easier for everyone and so that it would be easier to keep track of time. Azura turned around and looked at Corrin's treehouse, which was situated almost absurdly in the middle of the castle courtyard. At first, Azura had been completely baffled at the odd placement, but as the war dragged on, she started to appreciate Corrin's logic in having a place away from the castle and barracks to sleep.

She frowned as she saw the windows were still dark and unlit. Seeing that Corrin wasn't in his treehouse, Azura turned around and looked up at the highest room in the tallest tower of a castle. As she predicted, the room was still lit, and she swore that she saw a shadow flit past the open window, for just a split second. Azura felt her heart clutch at itself at the mere thought of Corrin pulling multiple all-nighters in a row just so that he could see this war through to the end. Not saying that she  _didn't_  want to end this war and save the world, but if it meant Corrin hurting himself,  _nothing_  was worth that.

Azura sighed as she made her way up the spiraling staircase, wishing that Corrin had chosen a room not as quite high, though she could understand his logic in choosing such an inconvenient room as his study. Ever since he had first transform, in Shirasagi, Azura couldn't help but notice a few new quirks Corrin had picked up.

For example, Corrin would always pick the rarer or redder meat if he had a choice, which, as expected, befit his partial status of being a dragon. But what  _did_  catch Azura off guard was his new-found fascination with gold, treasure, and "shiny" stuff, so much so that he ordered Niles to teach Kaze, Saizo, and the other ninjas in his personal elite guard how to lockpick any chest.

But most surprising of all, would probably be Corrin's preference for the open skies, which sharply contrasted Azura's preference to remain somewhat close to the ground. Ever since the size of Corrin's elite guard grew, he started to feel dissatisfied at having to work so close to the ground, to the point where he ordered Felicia, Jakob, Silas, Gunter, Flora, Kaze, and Lilith to help him move everything related to the war to what would so become his study and everything not down to his treehouse.

What then followed was a week of Corrin gliding down to his treehouse in a panic to search for something, only for him to suddenly remember that, of course, the item he was searching for was in his study, and so he would fly his way back up to his study.

That was all fine and good for Corrin, and Azura didn't mind walking up the stairs despite her hair to see him every time, but when he asked if they could also move the meeting room to the same tower, that was where they drew the line. Considering the fact that they only had one half-dragon in the army who could freely travel between the tallest tower in the castle and ground level, Lilith advised him to at least let the meeting room remain where it was, on the second story of the castle, to which he begrudgingly agreed.

Before long, Azura found herself standing in front of the wooden door leading to Corrin's study, and she took a moment to observe the sliver of light shining out the bottom of the door. A shadow quickly passed over it, and then again, most likely from Corrin pacing.

Without any further ado, she knocked gently on the door. The shadow paused, a series of footsteps quickly rushed towards the door, which flung itself open to reveal Corrin behind it, somewhat red-faced.

"Azura!" he breathed. "I-I—"

"Hi," she said, smiling. "You said you wanted to see me?"

"Uh, y-yeah, of course!" he stammered. He opened the door up wider and stood to the side, his arm extended. "Please, make yourself comfortable."

"'Make yourself comfortable?'" she asked. "Corrin, what's—"

All the breath in her body left her as she saw a small round table in front of Corrin's ornate mahogany desk, with a pair of candles lighted on top. She turned to look at Corrin, who shrugged sheepishly.

"What's…what's going on here?" she asked, not daring to take her eyes off the sight lest it disappear.

"Well," Corrin started, "when you told me that your birthday was coming up, I realized that I didn't have a gift planned for you yet, so—"

"So you asked Camilla, Hinoka, Sakura, and Elise to take me out to lunch in Izumo so you could finish setting this up?" Azura finished.

Corrin rubbed the back of his head. "Well, no, that wasn't the plan at first. I wanted to take you to Cyrkensia myself first, but then I realized that not only did I have too much business to afford the chance to take you out, but I also realized that the city was, well, pretty much destroyed, and that since it was situated mostly in Nohr, most of the city guards would have the authority to attack us on sight, so—"

"So you changed it to Izumo, a country renowned for its neutrality," Azura finished, a grin appearing on her face.

Corrin grinned back and shrugged unabashedly. "Classic Azura," he said, shaking his head. "Always finishing my sentences for me."

Azura giggled, something she's been doing more and more frequently around Corrin. "Yes well, I've heard from some of the women around the castle that more you love someone, the better you get at being able to read their thoughts."

Corrin rubbed the back of his neck, suddenly feeling flustered. "Yes, well, um, I love you too, Azura," he stammered. "Speaking of which…"

Suddenly animated, he took her hand and pulled her behind his desk. He casually pushed aside a pile of paper—"I'll deal with that tomorrow," he said, after Azura gave him a concerned glance—and pulled out a rose, its petals as red as Corrin's eyes and a hundred times more beautiful.

Azura took the flower, her hands slightly shaking, and raised her eyebrows as she realized there was a note tied around the stem. She carefully took the note and unwrapped it, her eyes flitting over the words written on it.

"P-part of the reason I wasn't able to see you as much this week was because I was trying to make it perfect for you," Corrin said, fidgeting. "T-the flower was the same one by my bed when I was recovering in the infirmary, and you looked like you liked it a lot, so I decided to take it and repurpose it into your birthday present."

When Azura did not respond, instead only rereading the poem again, Corrin hastily continued, "S-so I spent most of today trying to get the poem perfect, but I couldn't really do it, so—"

"I love it."

"W-what?" Corrin stared at Azura. "D-do you like it?"

"I love it," she repeated, smiling widely, tears of happiness glinting in the corners of her eyes.

* * *

_I _dream of a woman clothed in white.__

_She wears wings that shine with golden light._

_Her hair is fine like that of an olden wife._

_Her eyes hold a vision of the road of life._

_She whispers love through the winds._

_Then rivers of love flow to my heart and my spirit ascends._

_I grow embraced by heavenly heights._

_Then glow rays of warmth and light._

_I wait only for her touch of the purest._

_I fall to her holding of love, of spirit!_

_We become one in loving presence together._

_In love, we come to heaven forever._

_Like two doves we sing and dance._

_Love of a queen and king._

_Love will forever last!_

* * *

"How could I not?"

Corrin visibly sagged in relief. "Oh thank gods," he breathed. "I thought it was too sappy, or too cliched, or—"

"It was perfect," Azura said, lightly kissing his cheek. "Thank you. You have no idea how much it means to me."

Corrin grinned and rubbed the back of his neck. "Glad you like it," he said. "T-though truth be told, I had the idea in my head for a really, like,  _really_ , long time, but I couldn't come up with the right words, and so I was just  _barely_  able to finish today."

"Uh huh." Azura nodded as she gazed lovingly at Corrin, who looked away, still embarrassed.

"A-and so, I went to Leo, since, you know, he's somehow more accomplished than me in this matter, and he told me that—"

"I love you."

"Huh?" Corrin paused and stared at Azura, who had stepped closer to him. "A-Azura? What are you doing?"

Azura set the rose on Corrin's desk before looking down, suddenly bashful. "I know that it's not like me to ask," she said, embarrassed, "n-nor is it considered n-normal to ask, since it's more of an instinctive act, but…can you please kiss me?"

"W-what?"

Azura looked away, her face flushed. "I-I know that we've kissed before, but, you know, n-never when I loved you  _this_  much before."

Azura's eyes widened as she realized what she just said. "N-not to say that I've never loved, "I-I always have, b-but—"

Her voice cut off as Corrin indulged her, wrapping his arm around her waist and pulled her close, his lips clamping over hers. She resisted in surprise for a moment, but she sighed in contentment as she lost herself to him, letting her right hand entwine itself around Corrin's neck while her other hand rested flat on Corrin's chest.

They remained that way for quite a time, until Corrin finally pulled away. Azura tried to resist the temptation to keep following his lips with her own, but she begrudgingly let him go.

Rising to her tiptoes, she whispered into Corrin's ear, "I love you."

Corrin blushed and whispered back, "I love you too, Azura."

Azura sighed happily as she dropped back to the flats of her feet. "That was…"

"Memorable?" Corrin offered.

Azura smiled and nodded. "Precisely. Thank you."

Corrin grinned as he reached out with her arms to wrap her again, and Azura was about to, until a knock sounded at the door. The two of them froze, glancing between them and the door.

"Should I?" he mouthed.

"It's your door," she mouthed back.

Corrin groaned and rolled his eyes before opening it, revealing Jakob, who curiously dipped his head inside. "Ah, Master Corrin," he greeted. "Your food."

"W-wait, our food?" Corrin asked. He slapped his own forehead. "Oh yeah, I forgot that this was supposed to be a dinner!"

"Well, just make sure you two don't get  _too_  rowdy," Jakob said dryly. "I would hate to have to walk back up these stairs just to clean and straighten out everything."

"Don't worry about it," Corrin said reassuringly as he passed Azura one of the two plates. "We'll try to keep everything quiet."

Jakob nodded. He glanced towards Azura. "Milady."

Azura pursed her lips and nodded back. "Hello," she breathed.

Corrin grinned as he set his plate on the table and gestured Azura to sit. She did so, and carefully removed her cloche to reveal a parmesan risotto with roasted shrimp and a side of, as expected, strawberries. Corrin got a bowl of stewed beef and sashimi salad.

"You know, if people keep giving me strawberries, I'm going to start hating them one day," she quipped.

Corrin rose an eyebrow, his spoon freezing halfway between his lips and bowl. "W-well, if you don't want them, I'll—"

"It's fine," she sighed, taking a particularly large one and turning it in her fingers. "Honestly, you probably could've gotten me a box of strawberries for my birthday gift and I still probably would've reacted the same way."

Corrin mockingly slapped his forehead. "Oh, silly me!" he drawled. "I suppose I'm just the dumb male in the relationship, aren't I? Never knowing what the woman wants because she has a nasty habit of keeping secrets."

His eyes widened at the implications of what he just said. "Oh gods, Azura, I'm so—"

"Don't be," she replied. "I've accepted that I'll never be one to give up my secrets so easily, so taking jabs at my bad habits doesn't bother me anymore."

They ate in silence for a few moments afterwards, until Corrin broke it by saying "You're still mad, aren't you?"

Azura hid her grin behind her napkin, entertained at the sight of Corrin so flustered. "Of course not," she said. "What makes you think otherwise?"

Corrin awkwardly rubbed his hands together. "Well, you didn't really say anything for a few minutes there, so—"

"Would you like me to assuage your doubts by kissing you again?"

A wicked grin broke out on Corrin's face. "Yes, that'll be perfect."

Azura rolled her eyes. "You're such a koala bear."

"A…what? What's a koala bear?"

"It's a type of animal that lives in Hoshido's forests," she explained. "They don't really do much, besides eating and climbing trees, so that's why I called you a koala bear, because when they climb trees, it looks like they're hugging it."

Corrin blinked. "Oh. I see," he said. "Yeah, we don't really have those in Nohr, so I didn't really—"

"Oh, please forgive me!" she suddenly exclaimed.

"What's wrong?" he asked, almost rising from his seat.

"I didn't mean to make you so angry!"

"But I wasn't…"

"See?" she quipped. "That's how you are with me."

Corrin pouted. "Well, that's because you never show any signs of it," he countered.

"Only because we're in public," she retorted. "But when we're alone, well, when have I ever hid my true feelings from you?"

"Well…never, to be honest," he admitted. "Which makes me worry! Are you sure you're not angry at me? I can—"

"Are you still hung up on that?" Azura said, now unable to hide her smile.

Corrin caught the grin and he stared towards her, deadpanned. "Are you serious, Azura?" he asked. "I'm over here, trying to pour my heart out to you and trying to apologize, and you're over here making it into a joke?"

Azura laughed. "I'm sorry!" she said, trying to stifle her giggles. "You just look really cute whenever you're really flustered like that. I couldn't help it."

Corrin's brain fizzed out at that. "O-oh," he said, awkwardly setting his spoon down. "Well, in that case, now that I know that you're honestly not angry at me, what should we talk about? The night's still young and, I actually don't have anything big tomorrow, for once, so we can talk as long as you want."

"Well, not too long, I hope," Azura said, raising an eyebrow. "You know what Jakob said."

Corrin rolled his eyes. "Yeah, well, what kind of people are we to start yelling randomly in the middle of the night? Yeah, people say that I can be naïve sometimes, but that doesn't mean that I'm a jerk."

Azura felt her face flush again. "That's…not what he meant," she muttered, before giving up.

Corrin raised an eyebrow. "Did you say something?"

Azura hastily shook her head. "Oh, no, I didn't say anything. What did you want to talk about?" she asked, quickly changing the subject.

Corrin tapped his chin thoughtfully. "Well, since we're currently in it, how do you like to spend your free time?"

"M-my free time?" Azura asked. "I thought you knew what I did in my free time."

"Well, that was before we started courting, so you may have been keeping an embarrassing secret from me!" Corrin said playfully. "I promise I won't tell anyone."

Azura stood up, and for a split second, he was afraid that she was just going to leave the room, but instead, she sat down on the tiny cot set away in the corner. "You already know the answer," she replied. "I…just find a quiet place where I can be alone and practice my singing and dancing."

"Oh," Corrin said disappointedly.

"What?" Azura asked. "What were you expecting me to say?"

"Nothing," he said. "I just thought you were going to say something like you liked to draw or collect rocks or something."

"Collecting rocks, really? What type of woman do you think I am?"

"A beautiful, caring songstress, which my love far can't be put into words," he replied straightly.

Azura blinked, surprised, before looking away, blushing. "Oh, shush you," she replied. "J-just get over here."

Corrin raised an eyebrow. "W-what?"

"Just get over here!" Azura said, embarrassed. "I…I want you to hold me."

Corrin's eyebrow rose another few centimeters. "You want me… to hold you."

Azura nodded silently, too embarrassed to properly respond. Corrin sighed and grinned, shaking his head. He got up from the table and sat down next to her, but not before walking to his desk and picking something up.

He wrapped his arm around her shoulders, and Azura dug herself into the crook of his neck, nuzzling him. Corrin smiled gently, and shifted so that her back was to his chest, and his arms dropped lower until they were wrapped around her waist.

Azura, in turn, turned her head and kissed Corrin on the neck, just below his pulse point, causing it to race, though his facial expression did not change. They stayed together like that, cuddling and enjoying each other's warmth until Corrin broke the silence by asking, "What…do you want to do when this war is over?"

Azura was too surprised to properly respond at first. "W-when it's over?"

Corrin nodded.

Azura brought her knees up to her chest, the back of Corrin's hand warm against her thighs. "Well, I haven't thought about it too much," she said truthfully. "I mean, what do  _you_  want to do?"

"Rebuild Val—" He caught himself just in time.

Azura stared at him, her eyes widening in horror before he pressed a kissed to her forehead. "Don't worry," he said soothingly. "I'm not going to leave you so easily."

Azura pursed her lips. "Please don't," she murmured quietly.

She felt a deep hum on her back as Corrin absentmindedly hummed the first few notes of her song.

"Well, besides rebuilding and strengthening relationships between Nohr and Hoshido, I want to marry you and live in a small house next to the ocean," Corrin said.

Azura felt her heart flutter at his words. "W-why the ocean?"

"Because you are the ocean's gray waves, destined to seek life beyond the shore just out of reach," he joked, hugging her more tightly. "And because I felt…well, I felt that would be the best place to raise children."

Azura felt her face burn as she pushed herself away from Corrin. "Alright, now you've gone and ruined the mood," she said, refusing to look him in the eye, though the heavy blush betrayed her true feelings. "Why'd you have to go and bring up talk about the future? About children?"

Corrin hastily rose to his feet. "W-well, because it's sort of my job right now?" he offered. "I-I can't lead the armies if I don't plan ahead, right?"

"T-that was a rhetorical question!" she snapped, though there was no venom or harshness in it.

Corrin faltered. "D-don't you want children?" he asked.

The burning in Azura's face intensified to an inferno. "W-why'd you have to say it like that?" she asked, stuttering. "I-I do! B-but I d-didn't want to think about such things while we were in the middle of a war!"

Corrin wrapped his arms around her in a tight hug, one that she did not bother pulling away from. "I'm sorry," he whispered in her ear. "I didn't mean to make you so uncomfortable."

"I'm not," she said, then elaborated. "I-I'm not feeling uncomfortable. It's…it's just that I'm not used to thinking  _that_  far ahead."

Corrin remained silent, but a deep hum emanated from his chest. Azura stared, taken aback, before looking up at Corrin and reaching up to touch his face. "I would like nothing more than to marry and have children with you," she whispered, "but we can't afford to think about such things, right now, okay?"

Corrin looked down. "Okay," he responded simply.

They remained that way for a while, until Azura broke the silence, asking hesitantly "Do…do you still want me to stay?"

"Only if you want to," came the reply. "It's your birthday, after all."

So Azura walked towards the bed, pulling Corrin behind her. She took a moment to savor the feeling of Corrin's weight on top of her before they flipped around, so that they were in their previous situation, with Azura's back pressed up against Corrin's back and her legs drawn up to her chest while Corrin wrapped his arms around her waist and pulled her close. Azura's hand found her pendant and she clutched at it, the cold metal in her hand counteracting the burning she felt everywhere else. They sat there, enjoying each other's warmth and company until Corrin's hand's suddenly slackened and removed themselves from her body.

Azura repressed a huff and pressed herself closer to Corrin, but froze as she felt his hands press a small, velvet-covered box into her hands.

"What is it?" she asked.

"Open it," he murmured gently.

And so she did. With shaking fingers, her hands produced a pair of golden earrings, made of gold and forged in the shape of Valla's national emblem with an azure sapphire embedded in the middle in place of the star.

All the breath left her body as she stared at the piece of jewelry.

"I know you aren't the type to wear jewelry," Corrin apologized, "but I found it in the market a few weeks ago, and it reminded me so much about you and what we're fighting towards that I had to get it for you."

"How…how did—"

"How is it in the shape of you-know-where's national emblem?" Corrin finished. "I don't know. I just chanced upon it the other day, bought it, asked Leo to run a spell over it to make sure it wasn't secretly a trap, turned out to be legitimate, and realized it reminded me of you so I decided to gift it to you."

"It's perfect," she whispered. She closed the box and clutched it close to her chest. "Thank you."

Corrin smiled gently as he wrapped his arms around her again, the weight of his head settling into the crook of Azura's neck. "You're welcome," he whispered, kissing her neck. "And for you, I would walk across the ocean to slay a god and pull down the heavens themselves if it meant making you safe and happy."

Azura arched her back at the touch of Corrin's lips pressing against her back, which sent a tingling sensation up and down her body. The two remained that way, Corrin with his lips pressed against her neck, and Azura arching her back as she clutched the box and Corrin's hand to her chest, her mouth slightly opening in pleasure and ecstasy, until finally, Azura was able to suppress her primal urges enough to pull away.

Corrin let her go, but continued to hold her tight to her chest. Azura turned and pecked Corrin on the cheek, before asking. "How much did it even cost? I don't mean to offend you making you think that I was going to sell it for some petty gold, but his is solid gold, isn't it? With real sapphire to boot, so how much—"

"Don't worry about it," Corrin replied. "Turns out Lilith has nearly an endless supply of gold bars, and all you have to do is offer her a plate of food every once in a while, and she'll give you one free of charge. It's a positive net gain, really, since you can repay the cost of the food with the cost of the gold bar. So…do…do you like it?"

Azura smiled and kissed him again, on the lips. "Like I said. It's perfect."

She deepened the kiss, beyond anything Azura had done before or had even thought was possible, and she moaned in pleasure. The two remained entwined together like that for quite some time, long enough for the sun to disappear and be replaced by the moon.

Whenever they paused or broke apart, it was for air and to grin stupidly at each other, both too happy to say any words but wanting  _more,_  before resuming. Azura felt Corrin pull her closer and tighter than before.

She had never felt such a  _rush_  before, and every time the mere thought of wanting to stop passed through her mind, she pushed it aside, unable to entertain the thought for even a second.

Slowly, ever so slowly, the kiss deepened. Azura turned around so that her legs was wrapped around Corrin's waist, straddling him, and Corrin's arms snaked up her back, to the back of her neck, his hands warm against the bare skin there.

And behind them, resting on the desk, the rose shone more brilliantly than ever as the moon shone itself on it.

_~End of Arc 1~_


End file.
